Jesus the Christ is Probaby the Result of Creative Writing.

The proposition on offer is that Jesus the Christ is probably the result of creative writing. By way of clarification, the proposition is NOT that Jesus the Nazarene did not exist, but rather that the writers of the New Testament exaggerated the life of Jesus the Nazarene, added components of mythology, and used pieces of the Old Testament to piece together a picture of Jesus that was in line with their personal preferences. There are several notions that support this claim: 1) Jesus never wrote anything. Jesus did not write anything during his lifetime. Presumably Jesus was a decently intelligent and literate man. The reason I assert this is that he worked as a carpenter, requiring proficiency in measuring and some rudimentary math, as well as design. Also, he reads from scrolls in the temple, indicating he could read. This just causes one to ask the question, "Why didn't Jesus WRITE anything?" Did God send a son who could read and not write? 2) Jesus' immediate followers never wrote anything. None of the Twelve wrote anything down. One of them was almost certainly literate, as he was a former tax collector (Matthew, I believe). It is HIGHLY suspicious to me that none of the Twelve wrote anything about Jesus' life. The non-cannonical Gospels attributed to the Twelve are all collections of their teachings after the Commission of the Twelve. So I ask again, why did none of the people intimately involved in Jesus' life write ANYTHING??? 3) Contemporary writers do not mention Jesus the Christ. Philo, who lived from 20 BCE to about 50 CE, wrote specifically about Jewish politics and the conflict between Pilate/Romans and Jews in Judea. He makes no mention at all of Jesus the Christ. He does reference the mocking of a "Jewish King" in 39 CE. 4) Common themes to Jesus' life are in Middle-Eastern mythology. * Religions of the Middle East have long identified gods with celestial signs. * These religions believed in hell being a dark place under the earth, and that divine grace was how one stayed out of hell. * Gods in these religions are easily angered. * Many of these religions have a savior of sorts or other central figure. -- Tammuz, for example was a Sumarian shepherd-god who is held to have died and later risen from the dead. * The life of Jesus bears some resemblance to Egyptian gods like Horus, and even Grecco-Roman gods like Dionysus. (http://en.wikipedia.org...) (http://en.wikipedia.org...) (http://en.wikipedia.org...(deity)) 5) Many details of Jesus' life are found in the Old Testament. As the title of this section suggests, many portions of Jesus' life are found in the OT, and not just in the prophetic books. Some examples: Zec. 9: "Rejoice greatly, O daughter Zion! Shout aloud, O daughter Jerusalem! Lo, your king comes to you; triumphant and victorious is he, humble and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey." Isaiah 53 gives a rough outline of the theme of Jesus' life. Isa 50:6b - "I did not hide my face from mocking and spitting." Psa 22:1 - "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" Psa 22:8 - "He trusts in the LORD; let the LORD rescue him. Let him deliver him, since he delights in him." Psa 22:16b - "they have pierced my hands and my feet." Psa 22:18 - "They divide my garments among them and cast lots for my clothing." Psa 69: "They gave me poison for food, and for my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink." Amo 8:8a - "Will not the land tremble for this" Amo 8:9 - "In that day," declares the Sovereign LORD, "I will make the sun go down at noon and darken the earth in broad daylight. Eze 37:12b-13 - "O my people, I am going to open your graves and bring you up from them; I will bring you back to the land of Israel. Then you, my people, will know that I am the LORD, when I open your graves and bring you up from them." Birth of Jesus - Isa 7:14 & 9:6 Birth in Bethlehem - Mic 5:2 Egypt - Hos 11:1 Return to Nazareth - Jud 13:5 John the Baptist - Isa 14:30 & 2 Kin 2:8 & Mal 3 Temptation of Jesus - Psa 91:11-12, Deu 6:13 & Deu 6:16 Preaching in Galilee - Isa 9:1 Heals the Sick - Isa 53 Sermon on the Mount - Exo 19 Calming the Storm - Psa 107:28-29 More Healing - Isa 35:5-6 Commissioning of the 12 - Jos 4:1-2 & Mic 7:6 Transfiguration - Exo 34:29, Dan 12:2-4, Isa 40:3 Jesus Predicts His Death: Jonah 1:17, Psa 22 Entry into Jeresulam: Zec 9:9 & Psa 118:26 Fig Tree - Hos 9 Jesus Clears the temple - Zec 14:21, Neh 13:4-9, & Hos 9:15 Judas' Betrayal - Amo 2 Last Supper - Psa 41:9 Cup of suffering - Zec 12:2 & Psa 16:5 Crucifixion - Isa 53, Psa 22, Psa 69, Amo 2, Amo 8 Death - Eze 37, Isa 53, Psa 22, Psa 69 Resurrection - Isa 26:19, Eze 37, Dan 12:2-4 6) As if that wasn't enough, other details are based on mistranslation of Hebrew, obviously written to correlate with OT texts, or are simply fiction. Isa 7:14 in Hebrew reads: "Look, the young woman is with child and shall bear a son, and shall name him Immanuel." It is usually translated as "Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel," or some other virgin-laden text. The Star of Bethlehem is only "historically" recorded in the gospel of Matthew. Yet it appears in one other place - Numbers 24. No significant celestial events are recorded by Jesus' contemporaries - the star was inserted in the gospels to fit nicely with the prophecy in Numbers. Luke 2 describes a census taken while Quirinius was governor of Syria. Yet we know from the writings of Josephus and other contemporaries that Herod died before Quirinuius took the census in question... in 6 CE, 6 years AFTER Jesus' supposed birth date. The event is fiction, intended to show the relationship between Joseph and David, who was supposedly from Bethlehem - the census ordered people to return to the place of their ancestors... but there are a LOT of generations between Joseph and David... did they ALL live in Bethlehem? The gospels describe a massacre of children by Herod (Mat 2:16). The writings of Josephus make no mention of any such event. How Herod managed to pull off infanticide without anyone noticing is beyond me. The event is fiction, based loosely on the account of Pharaoh's similar infanticide in Exodus 1. The accounts of the death of Jesus state that there was darkness over the land, that the earth shook, and that the dead rose. No other writers recount these events... except Amos and Ezekiel. The event is fiction, written to correlate with Amos 8:8-9 and Ezekiel 37:12-14. ************************************* As one can see, there is substantial evidence that the events of Jesus' life as recorded by the gospels are based almost entirely on pre-existing writings. Consider: None of the writers of the gospel was physically with Jesus throughout his life. All the writers needed to translate from Hebrew to Greek. The OT text was available to these writers. Jesus himself nor his closest followers wrote anything about his life. Early writers like Paul do not give details of Jesus' life. How hard would it be, given these conditions, to make the "official" story of Jesus concur with the OT, and thereby transform an ordinary man into the Messiah? The answer - not hard AT ALL. AFFIRMED.