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

Pro said: "My criteria for establishing what is reliable in the New Testament is primarily congruity with other sources, especially those historical i.e. Josephus."My response: Really? Name one extra-biblical source that you used to prove that Jesus never claimed to be God nor did he predict his crucifixion...you didn't do it, all you did was appeal to Maccoby who isn't a New Testament scholar in the first place. He may have studied these issues a little bit, but he is not a scholar on this in any sense of term, only a student.Pro said: "I presented historical evidence contrary to historical narration"My response: No you didn't all I got from you was "well Maccoby theorizes this or Maccoby theorizes that". How is that Historical evidence? It isn't, it's merely conjecture of a Jew who doesn't believe Jesus is the Messiah in the first to try and cast doubt on Christianity without giving his evidence, just his opinions and theories that have no evidence.Pro said: "Maccoby tried establishing different version of the story by the process of elimination of quotes that seemed biased / manipulated to him"My response: Thank you for proving my point, you base your wild conclusions on the works of a man who only theorizes and puts forth conjecture that has no evidence, and in fact more evidence to refute him. If you can actually provide scholarly research that proves Maccoby's (false) claims, bring it here, i'll take a look at it.Pro said: "I started this debate with the assumption that New Testament has been intentionally manipulated with (which is by no means a revolutionary or aggressive thesis to contemporary biblical scholars)"My response: Yeah, seems like you forgot to say which "contemporary scholars" you are referring to, the scholars you are referring to are scholars who don't believe in the existence or God nor do they believe in the supernatural, so it is not surprising that they take a skeptical approach to the New Testament. But what you fail to say is that Believing scholars have long refuted all these worn out arguments against the New Testament, the unbeliving scholars just don't want to listen to what they have to say, so your view is very one-sided. Again, I just ask you, if you are going to throw out accusations like "the Bible has been tampered with" prove it, I don't have to prove that it hasn't been corrupted, you are the one making the claim. Just to cite to you a famous New Testament skeptic, Bart Ehrman, and what he says concerning the New Testament: "The position I argue for in ‘Misquoting Jesus’ does not actually stand at odds with Prof. Metzger’s position that the essential Christian beliefs are not affected by textual variants in the manuscript tradition of the New Testament." [1]So you can argue or try to prove all you want the the New Testament has been tampered with, but that will not prove that major Christian beliefs have been changed because of it.Pro said: "it is Con's burden to prove it is wholly congruous, both with itself and external historical evidence." My response: To do this would require more space than provided on this debate, but i'll just give you the short answer: if you just read the New Testament and allow the texts to speak for themselves and not try to force so called "inconsistencies" on the text where it doesn't exist, you will find that the New Testament is very consistent about who Jesus is, the purpose of his mission, his teachings, and his ministry on Earth. I recommend you reading the works/books of very smart believing scholars like Craig Evans, Craig Blomberg, Daniel Wallace, Darrell Bock, Michael Licona, and William Lane Craig (just to name a few). Again, I am not trying to evade this objection, it's just I can't fully respond to this with the limited space I have here. But the scholars I just listed do go into this objection in depth.Pro said: "if I pose a serious argument as to the credulity of NT narration about the reason Jesus was crucified, then the rest of narration breaks like a chain as well. Therefore alternative hypotheses as to why such a narration would've been invented are permissible as long as my argument remains valid."My response: What serious argument exaclty are you talking about, oh yeah let me guess, Maccoby says it right, therefore it must be true? Please, you're really starting to bore me, when will you base your conclusions on a serious scholars besides Maccoby who has ABSOLUTELY NO authority to talk about these matters, cite me Maccoby again and I will just ignore him, he is a charlatan of the first order. I don't say that to disrespect him, but he thinks that he could just come along with no credentials and attempt to discredit a faith he doesn't understand in the first place, i'm sorry, but this is just ludicrous. Maccoby just like you cherry picks what suits his interests from the New Testament, but anything in the New Testament that goes against his agenda to discredit my faith must not be reliable or just an invention by Paul, this is a tall tell sign that he is being very deceptive and not being fair with the New Testament. For more information exposing this charlatan refer to...[2] Pro said: "And again, NO, I do not rely on Ignatius' testimony claiming Jesus was God, just as I do not rely on Paul's - that much should be obvious since the last phase."My response: LOL, I wonder why that is, is it because Maccoby told you so, or is it because you don't want Jesus to be God, take your pick, I know it is one of the two. It seems like nothing will convince you, you just want to force your liberal views on me.Pro said: "HardRockHallelujah, you miss that completely. Hyam's hypothesis does contend that Jesus was crucified, but it questions the reasons for which he was crucified."My response: They wanted him dead because they found his message a threat to their authority. Not only this, but many times he claims to be the Son of God, which the Jews wanted to kill him, because of blasphemy, what settled it for the High Priest was when he asked Jesus at his trial "Are you the Christ, the Son of the Living God" Jesus said "I am. And you will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of power and coming with the clouds of heaven" (Mark 14:61-62) As for how the Jews understood his claim, there was no question, to them he committed blasphemy and they condemned him to death because of it. Any attempt to cast doubt on this event in Mark 14 is going to require hard evidence.Pro said: "First of all, that's appeal to authority, which unfortunately for Con should backfire, for Gerd Lüdemann did claim much of sayings attributed to Jesus were falsifications."My response: Oh, so you can appeal to Maccoby throughout the course of this debate, but the minute I cite a quote from someone, "hey don't do that". I am just really astonished at your hypocrisy and inconsistency. Well how about take your own advice and stop appealing to authority, namely Maccoby, who isn't even an authority to begin with. I didn't appeal to him to prove the crucifixion, I merely cited him because he is a skeptic, yet he agrees with Christians on the crucifixion, which means he believes there is good evidence to support it.Pro said: "(mind you that Hyam was a scholar studying Christian religious tradition as well)"My response: Maccoby is no scholar, he is just a charlatan, he is not a scholar of Christianity in ANY SENSE of the term, just an ignorant bloke who is very confused, as I have already provided documentation that exposes his lies and deception. Typical case of a blind man (Maccoby) leading another blind man (yourself) astray. I wonder when you will cite anyone besides Maccoby that agrees with your unqualified assertions.Pro said: "But Acts and Mark certainly were before Matthew and Luke."My response: To say that Acts and Mark were "definitely" written before Matthew and Luke is to over-state your case. While it is true that scholars today consider that the Gospels were written in the order of Mark-Matthew-Luke-Acts-John, most scholars agree that aside from placing these documents in the 1st century, there is really no way to know exactly when they were written.Pro said: "The prophecy was about Elijah being sent (Mal 4:5); John the Baptist flatly denied he's Elijah in John 1:21."My response: Did Elijah prepare the way of YHWH in Isaiah 40:3 or the Lord God in Malachi 3:1, like the passages says? No, it was John the Baptist who prepared the way for YHWH, who appeared in the person of Christ. Malachi 4:5 is not the same context of Malachi 3:1, so you're just stretching things.Pro said: "Thomas immediately claims Jesus to be God when seeing his stigma. Where's Thomas' own proof?"My response: Very simple, he saw Jesus in his resurrected body and called him his God, Jesus never said "hey I am just a mere man" he actually praises Thomas for his confession.Pro said: "I already responded to this when claiming none of the Gospels are trustworthy on the issue."My response: Yeah, even if unbelieving Jesus scholars believe he predicted his death, it doesn't matter I don't think he did so that settles it for me. This is flat out nonsense.Pro said: "I also urge Con not to use ad verecundiam."My response: Take your own advice and stop appealing to Maccoby who is NOT a New Testament scholar.Pro said: "That's the very issue I'm arguing about here - Jewish Messiah wasn't supposed to die but to free Israeli people from their physical oppression."My response: The Jews were right, but they just got their timing wrong, the Tanakh has two pictures of the Messiah, as a Suffering Servant, and a conquering King. They are right, the Messiah is suppose to free Israeli people from oppression, that will happen at his second coming. His first coming was to fulfill the suffering servant predictions.Sources:[1] http://crossexamined.org...[2] http://www.tektonics.org...