The historical Jesus Christ was a doomsday cult leader

Thanks for the quick reply ApostateAbe. == "Specious" sources == All of my opponents arguments seem to be ad hominems – he attacks my authors rather than what they had to say. The guy who keeps an in-depth, sourced, list of New Testament contradictions is a Geologist? This is like saying that Dawkins critique of the two genealogies is wrong because Dawkins is a Biologist. All of the "Jesus" scholars I cite are Christians. You usually have to reach outside the field of Bible studies to get an atheist's viewpoint. My opponent "strongly suggests" I use primary sources, with legitimate authors, to make my case. Ironically, his only evidence is from the New Testament, which is anything but a primary source and the authors are unknown. == Dropped arguments == First, it bears looking at which arguments my opponent drops (and in debate, if you don't answer an argument, you concede to it). He drops my J.D. Crossan evidence that John the Baptist was marked by an "apocalyptic asceticism" whereas Jesus was "almost the exact opposite of John the Baptist." Crossan refers us to Mark 2:18-20, Matt 11:18-19, Luke: 7:33-34, contrast in Matt 11:11/Luke 7:28. My opponent doesn't respond to the passage in Mark 2:18, showing John's followers fasting and Jesus' followers not fasting. He doesn't respond to the analysis from the book I posted that John the Baptist may have been from the Essenes cult found in the Dead Sea Scrolls. Even if he isn't, he shares their beliefs (water wipes away sin, fasting to wipe away sin, doomsday predictions). My opponent's ONLY answer to this is that it is an appeal to authority. However, the above explains the argument. I was merely showing that two-thirds of people who study Jesus as a living agree with me, based on the above evidence. My opponent also basically concedes that early Christians were Gnostics and the decision of which gospels should be included in the New Testament was entirely political because the Orthodoxy ruled in Rome. == King Arthur and the Jesus Amalgamation == The source I cited does mention Arthur as an amalgamation, but I got this claim from Bernard Cormwell's Historical Note is the book The Winter King. [4] Cornwell is a former history professor at London University. He says that the name Arthur became very common during the time period in question, so it would be very easy to confuse different warlords and kings with each other. [4] He also says that ALL of the accounts of Arthur borrow heavily from oral traditions and myth. [4] Lastly, Cornwell mentions that the Christianization of Arthur has completely altered and falsified the stories. [4] This is actually pretty basic information though. If Arthur never existed, then the oral traditions and myths of him were obviously an amalgamation of lore from various different sources, whether mythical or real people named Arthur. "Some scholars argue that Arthur was originally a fictional hero of folklore—or even a half-forgotten Celtic deity—who became credited with real deeds in the distant past. They cite parallels with figures such as the Kentish totemic horse-gods Hengest and Horsa." [1] This should sound familiar; it's the same as the claim that the Jesus myth is just an amalgamation of stories taken from the pagan gods: Tammuz, Osiris, Attis, Dionysus and the sun god Mithras. The first Youtube video shows similarities between Jesus and many other Gods: http://www.youtube.com... Horus performed miracles, was known as the "lamb of God," and after being betrayed, was crucified, lay dead for 3 days, then was resurrected. If you watch Religulous (second video), it also explains that Horus walked on water and raised "Asar" from the dead ("Asar" translates to "Lazarus"). http://www.youtube.com... Dionysus was born of a virgin on Dec 25, was a traveling teacher who turned water into wine, he was referred to as the "King of Kings" (God's only son), and upon his death, he was resurrected. Mithra was born of a virgin on Dec 25, had 12 disciples and performed miracles and upon his death, was buried for 3 days and then resurrected. The sacred day of worship for Mithra was "Sunday." Why did the 3 Kings visit Jesus upon his birth? The three stars of Orion's belt were known in ancient times as the "3 kings" and they oversee the rising of the Sun on December 25. Bethlehem translated to "House of Bread," another name for the constellation Virgo (The Virgin), from whence the Sun rises (is born) on Dec 25th. The 3 day death is the Winter Solstice of the Sun and the resurrection in the Spring Equinox (or Easter). Obviously, the Jesus myth borrows HEAVILY from other Sun-god religions. == Is anything in the New Testament true == If the authors are willing to borrow so heavily from pagan mythology, why should we believe ANYTHING they write about Jesus? The third Youtube video http://www.youtube.com... shows 23 major historians who were alive during Jesus' time who fail to record anything about Jesus, or any other MAJOR events of the New Testament, such as King Herod ordering all babies in Bethlehem killed. I also already explained that the only reason these gospels were accepted and the others were excluded was because the Vatican wanted to stamp out Gnosticism in the 4th Century. So if Mark, John, Luke, etc were willing to borrow pagan myth stories and falsify Jesus' family tree, how are we expected to trust the veracity of anything else they say? Once you find out that a "historian" is willing to lie, you can't really trust anything else that person wrote. == Jesus Amalgamation – Part 2 == What about the non-fictional characters who make up the Jesus stores? Hayyim ben Yehoshua, a Talmudic scholar, explains that Yeishu ben Pandeira, also known as Yeishu ha-Notzri, had five disciples, two of which were Matthew and Thaddeus. I'm sorry my opponent failed to find any sources on him. As Hayyim explains, the original sources are in Hebrew and are very old (likely on micro-film in some library in Israel). Yeishu translated to Jesus, not Jacob, as my opponent suggests. The record shows that Yeishu was branded a sorcerer and thrown out of his temple. There were three other false messiahs around this time period that were crucified: Yehuda, Theudas and Benjamin. The Jesus myth could be based on any, or all, of them. == The Pauline Epistles == My opponent doesn't bother pasting the full Bible quotes in this debate, so I tried to save time in my refutations, but I have no problem examining these. He first cites 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18. If you read this passage, it is written in the third person: Paul is talking ABOUT Jesus and is describing the Rapture. [2] Nowhere does it say that Jesus held these beliefs during his lifetime or that he preached them. Next is 1 Corinthians 15:50-52. "Now I say this, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God." This fits with the theories I have already cited from Robert W. Funk, that the historical Jesus was referring to a metaphorical Kingdom of God, which would be achieved through salvation of the soul while here on Earth. This also fits with the Gnostic belief system. == Mark and the Son of Man == I just want to start by repeating that I don't believe the gospels are true. But assuming parts of them are, most Jesus scholars don't even believe that the historical Jesus was a doomsday prophet. My opponent claims that Jesus never claimed to be the Son of God (or even the messiah). However, if this is true, it proves that the gospels are false, since Mark then contradicts all the other gospels: John 10:24-30 "I and the Father are one" Matthew 26:63-64 "Tell us if you are the Christ, the Son of God." "Yes, it is as you say," Jesus replied. Luke 22:70 "Are you then the Son of God?" He replied, "You are right in saying I am." John 10:36-38 I said, 'I am God's Son' So to win this argument, my opponent must essentially concede that the New Testament is utter fabrication. Or I suppose he could try to rely solely on Mark, but Mark creates the stark contrast between the followers of John the Baptist (fasting doomsday followers) and the followers of Jesus. Mark also contradicts itself then, when Jesus does claim to be the Messiah. Let's look at more passages from Mark. 27 "On the way he asked them, "Who do people say I am?" 28 They replied, "Some say John the Baptist." This is yet MORE proof that people were confusing Jesus with John the Baptist. This passage continues: "29 "But what about you?" he asked. "Who do you say I am?" Peter answered, "You are the Messiah." 30 Jesus warned them not to tell anyone about him." Why is it that in the doomsday passage, Jesus is referring to the Messiah as someone else, but in THIS passage in Mark, he refers to himself as the Messiah and tells people to keep quiet about it? Note: this passage comes RIGHT before the doomsday passage. With this knowledge in mind, let's re-examine the "doomsday prophecy" in Mark 8: "34 Then he called the crowd to him along with his disciples and said: "Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves . . . If anyone is ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will be ashamed of them when he comes in his Father's glory with the holy angels." First, notice that the speaker asks his followers to "deny themselves," which is asceticism. We've seen in OTHER passages from Mark that John the Baptist was the ascetic, NOT Jesus. Second, the speaker refers to himself ("me") as a different person than the Son of Man. We know that the gospels are just an amalgamation of different myths and quotes. This could easily be a misattributed quote from John the Baptist. It's obviously not from Jesus, who referred to himself 4 stanzas earlier as "the Messiah." Sidenote: honestly, this just makes zero sense assuming Mark is a "historical book." First Jesus says "I'm the Messiah, shhhhhh." Then 10 seconds later, he says "don't be mad at ME, when the Messiah comes (future tense) he'll be mad at you." The only possible explanation for this discrepancy is either that Mark is total fabrication or the stanzas are random quotes and pieces sewn together from various sources, and the two speakers are different people. My opponent never DOES reconcile why SOME passages are so filled with love and hope and others are filled with despair, asceticism, and doomsday. It is because the quotes are coming from two different speakers: a historical Jesus and a historical John the Baptist. == Too many arguments == I'm sorry my opponent is having trouble, but if he didn't spend 2500 characters (ad hominem) attacking just ONE of my sources, he'd have plenty of space. I don't really want to keep answering new responses each round, so I'd appreciate it if my opponent made all his arguments at once. == Sources == [1] Green 1998; Padel 1994; Green 2007b, chapters five and seven. [2] http://www.biblegateway.com... [3] http://www.biblegateway.com... [4] http://www.ibooksonline.com...