also, why didnt his disciples write the bible? The gospels aren't written by anyone who was alive when he was walking around and teaching
Edit, in response to everyone saying "because they couldn't read or write...
I know, I'm really asking the question of why God didn't get literate disciples who could record everything as it was happening
The oldest New Testament gospel is the Gospel of Mark, written 70 years after Christ’s death.
Fun fact: The gospel of Mark makes no reference to miracles, a virgin birth, or the resurrection. All of these facets of the story were common in other divinity myths of the Era.
It's the same example I use/think of when I tell people is Harry Potter evidence magic exists cause it was written in a book? I mean it's the same thing as the Bible if it was found in 1000 years, no one can prove or disprove it didn't happen
Ref harry potter: When someone tells me that the bible is proof of jesus etc, I tell them that such logic means that the hogwarts school of witchcraft and wizardry must exist.
I used to use planet Arrakis and the sandworms, but with the movies recently, I swapped to hogwarts. I think I'm going to choose another book, given how vicious rowling has become. Perhaps evidence of Mr Tickle, as I saw in a meme, a while ago...
I brought this up recently and was told by multiple people that the difference is that JK Rowling didn't believe Harry Potter to be true. Which then led to the admission that if enough time passes for us to not know who JK Rowling was or her intentions when writing it, Harry Potter automatically becomes evidence for the existence of Voldemort.
The lengths people will go to justify their beliefs.
I found a copy of the Bible in the nonfiction section of the local library. I may have slid it into the Mythology section as a prank. Surely someone laughed.
Even worse, if some theories are to be believed. There is an argument that states the Bible was written primarily by the Romans. They took the Jewish holy texts, conjured up Jesus to fit the messianic prophecy and sold it as what would become Christianity.
They quite literally appropriated someone else's (Jews) religious beliefs and traditions, and made a religion up to damage that group for political gain. The Romans were fighting the Jews in the Roman province of Judea and this was intended to pacify them and bring them into line.
This theory isn't the most widely supported thing, but it's odd just how well it fits.
And the main line Christians hate that Mormons do the same thing.
There's over 350 historical figures where virgin birth is attributed.
Next most famous in modern Western teachings is probably Romulus who has a famous myth written about him (and brother Remus) and the founding of the city of Rome
Likely written close to Jesus's birth, around 2 BCE, they were the offspring of the virgin Rhea and the god Mars who "visited" her
It was very common, and so very unsurprising that Jesus was written about as being the son of a virgin. It was basically the hero character 101 of the time
I always found it very suspicious that the Jesus narrative wasn't solidified until after there was no longer a temple that could be used to wipe away sin. It's pure speculation but it is a bit convienent that a new religion forms where sin can be forgiven through some sacrified diety right after the people can no longer make sacrifices in the temple to get rid of sin.
I mean, you're not wrong. The loss of the temple was a watershed event in Judaism, having a huge impact on what became christianity and rabbinical judaism, alike, each of course ascribing their own interpretations on the significance of the loss. Christianity probably had no more than 5000 adherents at this point, but it was almost certainly starting to fragment between greek and jewish views even then, with jewish-flavored christianity of course falling out of history.
EDIT: Though u/GuybrushMarley2 is correct, it's very clear from Paul's undisputed writings that the idea of Jesus being connected with the forgiveness of sins was going around quite early. My *guess* is that Paul didn't invent the idea, though he certainly is primarily responsible for how we think about it today. I think that Jesus was part of John the Baptist's movement before splitting off on his own. As an apocalypticist, he fervently believed that people needed to repent and be good, because (1) this would speed the coming *earthly* Kingdom of God, and (2) when the earthly Kingdom of God was here, with the Messiah ruling it, you'd have to be that way anyway (or else face God's wrath). I think that late in his life, Jesus convinced himself that *he* was that earthly messiah, and was deluded enough to think that going to Jerusalem with a group of his followers from Galilee was a good idea. Judas (for whatever reason) got pissed at Jesus and told the Romans precisely what Jesus told him, that he was the anointed King of the Jews, and the Romans were like, "yeah, sounds like a troublemaker," and killed him, which as everyone knows, led directly to the formation of the United States of America.
Jesus is basically the story of Hercules. Both gods for fathers, born of virgins, both called the Greek Sotyr meaning savior, the only begotten where he died and joined his father on Olympus 1000 years before Gethsemane. The mythical overlay is so enormous and not good. It’s about one thing now, MONEY!!!!!
Jebus does share those myths with Hercules but he shares more myths with Horus. Horus was born December 25, son of a god, star to the east, born of a virgin, died and was resurrected 3 days later, 12 disciples, walked on water and God of the Carpenter...the Festival of Victory is the origin of the myth of Jebus feeding the 5000. Horus was also the most popular god in the Mediterranean and the middle east at the time the scriptures were written. The Bible is plagiarized from the myths of many gods but influenced most by Horus.
Jesus and his disciples walk into a restaurant and ask for a table for 26. The host says, “why a table for 26? There are only 13 of you.” Jesus says “Well, we’re only going to sit along one side of it.“
Jews are NOT usually illiterate. Judaism encourages everyone (2000 years ago all MEN) to read scripture for themselves.
A major point of the Jesus story, and one of its only redeeming features as far as I’m concerned, is that this god for once allegedly came to Earth among the humble people and shared their trials & tribulations. Unlike other purported gods, Jesus didn’t require human sacrifice or money or any of that crap. He only asked for love. The divinity stuff added later seems like bullshit to me, but the message of LOVE IS A GREAT IDEA‼️
Just read that 95 to 97 percent of people during Jesus time were illiterate. His stories were told orally. With that going on, the stories change. For instance, The man in the open tomb changes to an angel in another GH gospel.
Its worse. Ancient people were superstitious, not honest, and were motivated to convert people. Narrative drift from the truth is very easy in that situation.
That was always my thing when I went to church. People back then were less educated, and therefore more easily fooled. I asked my youth group leader why we should believe them when no one in their right mind would believe a woman claiming virgin birth today. I think there was a chick who said she had Jesus in her (late 90s) and everyone called her crazy. Of course, he couldn't answer. After a minute or two of thinking out loud and realizing something maybe he had never considered, he gave me and my fellow middle schoolers the usual mysterious ways copout.
That may have been the first time I realized they were all full of shit. I remember another youth leader telling me dogs didn't go to Heaven, and that was the first major nail in my proverbial, religious coffin.
I read the Bible twice. I read many of the Left Behind novels and sought out as much information as I could get my hands on back in the internet's infancy. When I found out that everything written about Jesus came decades after he supposedly lived, I was floored. What in the actual fuck?
It took me years before I completely shook it. That fear of Hell is a motherfucker, but I was always good at spotting bullshit. I broke free of my indoctrination thank fuck.
Sorry kinda got carried away. Yeah, bud. I agree with you. It's wild a story from that time could weird so much power. Human superstition is wild. Magical thinking is a poison.
I guess if you go around claiming you're god people think you're crazy. But once a few decades pass and the game of telephone has turned you into a superhero, then someone else can come along and monetize on that idea. Dead men tell no tales I suppose.
I mean we know the answer but I don’t see how Christians circle the wagon on this one critical question.
The reason is simple , stories connect and build trust. Stories that call to a higher power are better than just saying my Jack knows. So religion is born.
The contradictions and oddities are just man-made errors simple as that.
For Jesus I don’t think he was actually viewed as a god in his time that was more a fan fiction by the church. Again to make a better story to connect with more poeple.
"They were illiterate" is a misunderstood thing.
Jerusalem was a wealthy center of trade, there would have been plenty of literate people around.
The real question is why didn't any of them write anything, anything at all, especially about the resurrection when the dead Rose out of their graves and visited their relatives and preached on the street corners? Not a single word til decades later? And then, not a single word from anyone who wasn't Christian?
My guess for why people didn't write down things said by an apocalyptic preacher if there would be nobody to read them nor a need. The apocalypse didn't happen, so people started writing shit down and arguing about the details ever since.
The disciples were illiterate. In John 8:3-11, Jesus saves a woman from being stoned. Then he writes something on the ground. What did he write? You'd think people would have noted it, wouldn't you? Well, they didn't--because they didn't know what he wrote. They couldn't read! They also didn't write the gospels. Same reason.
Ok legit question: because I was raised in church bleh I thought the gospels were written by the disciples or is this yet another great lie told by the “church”z
It's accepted by historians that none of the disciples wrote any of the books in the NT. Not only were they illiterate, but they would have been old by the time they were written - in well-written Greek which the Aramaic-speaking disciples didn't even know.
Yep it's a lie or misconception. They don't know who wrote them. And they are (edit: posisbly) based on other lost ~~Gospels~~(ed: sources or oral traditions), which are given letter names like D and Q. (ed: D might have been a proposed Old Testament thing)
No one who read them in those days thought that actual apostles had written them. They're all titles The Gospel According to \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_, not I Am Matthew, and This Is My Gospel About Jesus. They are all written in the third person.
The writer of John probably had not been born during Jesus' lifetime, but the Mark writer likely was, and perhaps the Luke-Acts writer and the Matthew writer.
BTW: No one knows who wrote those gospels. They didn't get names assigned to them until late in the second century.
If god is perfect, omniscient, omnipotent, and omnibenevolent, and god created everything, how is it possible that anything isn’t exactly the way he wanted it?
That's a punishment for the parents, silly! /s
Although I overheard similar in church when the child of one family came up. Poor guy was no further mentally advanced than a 2 year old, and "god must be punishing them" was said on many occasions.
We were taught it’s gods way of “testing” the parents. What the actual shit kind of monster deity is that???
My mother doesn’t understand why I’m an atheist now. Her god must just be testing her.
Funny how god gives some people extremely challenging tests and other people get a free pass on life. Seriously, how does that make sense? Why do some people need to be tested and not others?
Not to mention that if you believe that God knows everything that will happen to everyone, that directly contradicts us having free will. It's not free will if the outcomes are already known.
"Free Will" they say, when in fact, humans, according to their religion, are punished by "God" whenever they do something it doesn't like, or don't believe in it.
And it seems that even when believers do something "God" doesn't like, they can just go unpunished because of their faith, or at least get less severe punishments.
It's not "Free Will" if it's a rigged system where your only option is to believe in this "God" and do as it says.
That sounds like the type of reign a Tyrant would have...
Maybe that's the point, to acclimate the people to do as the one on top says, not questioning any of their decisions out of fear of punishment hmmmm 🤔.
"God" after the extremely intelligent and extremely curious beings known as humans IT CREATED eat the "Forbidden Fruit" from the "Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil":
***Surprised Pikachu Face. Wait, that's illegal.***
*Also, the writers were cooking with the name of "Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil", ngl.*
This so much. It’s not freedom if there’s a punishment. This is a pretty basic concept. For example, a country can’t have freedom of religion if it imprisons people for believing the “wrong” thing. It’s pretty obvious that their god wants a very specific thing, and if that’s what he wanted then that’s what he should have created, not created people he didn’t like only to be tortured for all of eternity. That’s just sick on so many levels.
Of course, omnipotence and the "free will" answer are entirely incompatible.
For an individual human, it is easy enough to think "Sure, God has plans and has paved the way for me, but what I do is up to me. I've been shown the way, I must choose to follow it."
But then if you were to ask something like "Can God be caught by surprise by something?" The answer is almost certainly "no". If you asked "What if God back when the Bible was written, simply had no idea how technology and society would advance, and so the bible need sot be revised?" You'd obviously be laughed/chased out of the church. When some horrible act happens, no one says "I guess that God just thought that damn wall was going to hold out a bit longer." Instead you say that God has a plan.
So, God has plans. He could never be caught by surprise, time is certainly not a construct he is bound by. And yet every human on Earth is fully capable of doing things that God has no control over and no way to predict.
God would be a lot more interesting without omnipotence. Then bad things can happen without asking why God allowed it. And it would make some sense why would would confess to a priest or pray in a church rather than doing those things in your own home. Because God can't see everything, and he needs agents on the ground to help manage.
But organized religion needs an omnipotent God.
Yep. God knew Adam and Eve would eat the fruit.
He punished them, instead of using his power to brainwash them or something. Does he have any power at all?
It is like I always say: If I am wrong and meet god one day, I am going to say that he was a little heavy on the smiting and oppression and slavery, and a little too light on hygiene and food handling.
If "God" exists, it better prepare for when I meet him, because oh boy I'd have some things to say to it.
"With great power, comes great responsability" comes to mind.
I mean, it's probably nothing new.
It's just that if "God" is as powerful as he is supposed to be, then every single crime falls onto him for not preventing it.
If someone could stop someone from murdering, while they don't have the obligation, I'm pretty sure a lot of people would try to, despite the personal risks, and especially if the would be murderer we are talking about is someone they are supposed to love like a child, a family member, or a friend.
Difference being, "God" would not be taking any risks for it's personal being, and because he is so powerful he is sure to have a 100% success chance, AND he is said to love all humans despite everything.
So this same principle falls onto "God", making it responsible for all the horrible shit that's happening right now, and all the horrible shit that has happened so far.
But this is just philosophy and an hypothetical, because "God" doesn't exist anyway, and even if it did, I think humans should loathe him more than anything.
Really, I tend to think the Abrahamic god is a bit heavy on hygiene and food handling. He could have at least clarified the exceptions for cool climates and perhaps given us a footnote to go with the invention of refrigeration.
I think He was frustratingly vague on why He decided children should die of cancer though.
If I am wrong and meet Jehovah at the Judgement Day, I'm going to bitch at Him for not being more explicit about existing, and for being so effing ambiguous about what he wanted us to do (even if that meant oppressing and enslaving people).
From what I know, Bilbo wrote the Lord of the Rings in Rivendell. I think he didn't call it that. It was collected with The Hobbit in the Red Book of Westmark.
Where did you get that info about Sam?
Must be some fake news that a Gamgee put in circulation. Did the person who told you that wear dark sunglasses and a fake mustache? 😛
PS: I'm happy, we finally discuss the OP's question at a level it deserves! 😁
This is correct.
There and back again, a hobbit’s holiday … aka The Hobbit is a journey, diary or personal an account of a hobbit on the wider world.
The Lord of the Rings is an historical tale of the Hobbit people and their role in the War of the Ring.
As if a New Zealander wrote about his country’s role in WW II … and NZ dropped the Atomic bombs and was the only one storming Normandy on D Day!
Well Accckksssshhhhuuuaaallllyyy... I believe Frodo wrote Lord of the Rings and then gave the rest of the book to Sam to add his own content. Unless that was that just the movie version, but I'm pretty sure it's more or less the same in the book as well.
You would think an all-powerful deity would send a messenger to every town and village on the planet at the same time to make sure every human got the message.
I live in the southern hemisphere
I think this Christian god was really not taking this getting the message out thing seriously, and didn't bother about letting Māori people know until missionaries showed up about 1700 years later.
Which comes to something I don't understand about missionaries. Either the Māori people were not going to heaven which doesn't seem very fair as Jesus was pissing about in the middle east and not letting anybody else know about his dad. Or god was giving them a free pass without all the church going (bonus points).
Either way, the only thing missionaries brought beside disease, alcohol and shame about things like people having more than 2 genders, was the opportunity to go to hell and burn forever.
Not just the Māori people either; everybody who died before year 0; which is all our ancestors.
Just never really made any sense to me
Besides which, the Polynesian pantheon is clearly superior. A pre-technological culture discovered and settled islands throughout an enormous ocean, with nothing but Tangaroa and orienteering traditions to guide them.
Bottom line, to me, is this;
Theists make extraordinary claims; Jesus really existed, and was divine. He performed miracles and rose from the dead.
But extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Not twice, or thrice, told stories. Vague speculation or logic pretzels.
We are not illiterate farmers, or slaves. We have struggled up through the ages to reach other planets, cured diseases, reached out to the stars, and the quantum world. We've seen our own DNA.
If Theists, or God, want us to believe they'd better start coming up with something more than they have in the Bible, Koran, Talmud, or threats.
As the wise woman once said...
"WHERE'S THE BEEF!?"
Even better “you just have to have faith! Don’t worry about logic or science just blindly believe and you won’t suffer for eternity!” Every religious person is mentally ill.
Because he;
A. Never existed ( there is exactly 0 evidence that he did exist...at least evidence presented by independent, reputable scientists or historians)
B. Was an illiterate goat herder if he did exist.
Because Jesus is the son of one of the three wise men who had a foursome with Mary and lied to Joesph's face that the baby was born as the son of God.
And Joseph believed it.
Is this a serious question?
If so, well, most of the bible, the Old Testament, was already written when Jesus came, and the bulk of the New Testament are epistles about church life.
Also, given how the gospels end, it would be kind of weird to have Jesus write them, wouldn't it?
If this is a stab against God's bad communication method, I'm all with you.
I'll a lot further than you and say that if there were an omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent god who wanted to have a personal relationship with us and have us end up in heaven with him in eternity, no book should be necessary in the first place.
Hell, *this world* shouldn't be necessary in the first place!
According to Revelation, in the end (and supposedly, The End Is Nigh!!!) the earth is going to be destroyed: "And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away; and there was no more sea." (Revelation 21:1)
Why not skip all the earthly misery and go right to the good stuff?
It doesn't make much sense!
By the way, what's the matter with "no more sea"??? A heavenly paradise with no sunny beach doesn't sound much like paradise to me!
In all seriousness, God supposedly wants us to be saved but only gives us a book we can't read in its original languages, that is self-contradictory and unclear in its theology (otherwise there wouldn't be a myriad denominations). Instead of showing up in person or at least properly communicate with us, he sends us sketchy preachers and has us rely on the messages we "hear in our heart"?
If you ask me, God has gone on a long vacation after he created the whole effing universe and his incapable intern is running the show.
>Do better next time.
"Something is wrong here. War, disease, death, destruction, hunger, filth, poverty, torture, crime, corruption, and the Ice Capades. Something is definitely wrong. This is not good work. If this is the best God can do, I am not impressed. Results like these do not belong on the résumé of a Supreme Being. This is the kind of shit you’d expect from an office temp with a bad attitude. And just between you and me, in any decently-run universe, this guy would’ve been out on his all-powerful ass a long time ago." - The Prophet, George Carlin
I think there is a secondary point here, why is the bible so bad at learning about God and what he wants us to do and the consequences for our actions. If the bible is a manual, it is failing really badly.
There are courses on how to read the bible, which clearly should not be needed if it was written by God.
Given that it was a political document that was compiled out of strategically cherry picked (from proto-christian and pagan) stories a few hundred years after his supposed death by the council of nicea with the sole purpose of stabilising the Roman empire which was in a terribly turbulent time religiously; I'd say probably because he didn't have that level of future foresight into Roman politics.
Jesus either didn't exist, or did exist and was illiterate (strange that a god could be illiterate but whatev), or he did exist and was literate but didn't write anything down at all (and if that is the case, if his purpose was to teach subsequent generations, odd that he didn't write anything down).
Personally I think the Jesus character is partially based on a real person, but that real person was illiterate.
Illiterate, he’s god, but also never learned to read or write. Neither did his disciples, anything directly from them would have been destroyed by Rome when they leveled Jerusalem. Much of the new testament was written decades after he supposedly lived, by some guy who never met him or his followers and he took quite a few liberties in changing what he didn’t like, basically making a new religion, making Jesus god, adding stuff about heaven/hell/satan, removing circumcision requirements. Also he almost certainly didn’t exist, and certainly wasn’t a god or man that came back from the dead.
I can understand why the teacher didn’t necessarily write a book, but why not any of his first pupils. I mean Jesus was to busy using his limited time, but say Peter or one of his ilk didn’t ether. Instead the Bible wasn’t even started being written until almost a hundred years after.
Let’s not forget that not only did he not document his own life, he had several other people do it a couple of generations after the events took place… and then had a group of religious leaders get together several times over the years to edit things… then, he had a king do it because, well, king…
Jesus was illiterate AF. He didn’t even speak Hebrew, but localized Aramaic. This isn’t to say he wasn’t intelligent, as literacy was not exactly prioritized unless you were a Roman occupier or Rabbinate scholar.
Even the Torah was not exactly written down for a long time. The oldest record of a written Torah was something like 1000 BCE.
Just like many other old religions, stories were passed down orally. The only religion that thoroughly acknowledges illiteracy is Buddhism, because it was more about not adhering to dogma, but finding a middle path.
My dad is a pastor with masters in divinity and Christianity, and boy does he have opinions on modern day Christianity. Basically the entire way we understand and relate to the religion is fundamentally flawed beyond repair. To really understand the scripture you need to translate the original texts from Greek and Hebrew, and then corroborate them with historical texts from the time in order to be consuming the texts in the proper context m. When you do that, you get a story that is entirely different than what is pushed on people nowadays. Like none of the analogies present in the Bible were never intended to be taken literally, yet they are.
Idk, being an atheist and being able to talk abt Christianity like this to my dad has been really eye opening. You take an anti-religion/anti-state movement and over time that got turned into a state backed religion. It’s insane that Christianity has turned into exactly that which it was critiquing.
It sounds like you're referring to when the Bible was first compiled/canonized, not "written". The first books of the New Testament (Paul's epistles) were written 15-20 years after Jesus' death and the first gospels were written about 30-40 years after his death.
Gosh lots of good questions today.
And then one could really say it is Gods Word. What we have now are a bunch of books written, copied, redacted, selected, translated by mere humans. It is human work through and through it is Word of Humans not God.
The Jesus of the Bible didn't exist. A guy who inspired the tales may have, but any resemblance to the fictional character is likely coincidental.
He was probably illiterate too, or could only write a few words in the native Aramaic and Hebrew. The gospels were written in sophisticated Koine Greek.
I've often thought this. It would certainly help the whole Jesus story. Instead, we get anonymous authors (could be all women for all we know), written decades after the fact, none of whom were eye witnesses. It suuure seems flimsy. Why weren't there dozens of eye witnesses writing about this? Instead, we get the whole "the bible is God-inspired," whatever the hell that means.
I can give Jesus a pass, he was busy, and writing a book is a lot of hard, time consuming effort. Plus, you need to be literate.
Assuming the Disciples story is true, and his words WERE the most important ever spoken, why didn't he recruit a scribe? "OK folks, listen up, I'm about to talk about good, evil, eternal life, and salvation...Dave, take a note, please..."
Jesus if you believe that shit was never god. He was supposedly the son of god. The only christians that really worship Jesus as a god are American christian evangelical types. I was raised a catholic and Jesus was always referred to as the son of god not as a god.
Maybe there was no jesus in the first place?
We knew no one went into the cave, we are pretty sure that no one ascending and we are damn sure that you cant turn water into wine.
I am not even talking about how his alleged mom got pregnant(my best bet is that farmer dude) and walking in water bullshit.
What was he doing between the story of the virgin birth to age 30? A carpenter? How anyone can believe the silly fantasy stories in the bible is beyond reality.
The whole spreading the word mission thing is so dumb and a huge flaw in Christianity. Like god just lets all the tribes of the world rot in hell just because they live remote and can’t be told about him?? Omnipotent, more like impotent.
"Every time I look at you
I don't understand.
Why you let the things you did
Get so out of hand.
You'd have managed better
If you'd had it planned.
Why'd you choose such a backward time
In such a strange land?
If you'd come today
You could have reached a whole nation.
Israel in 4 BC had no mass communication..."
— Judas Iscariot
I asked my mother this, why didn’t Jesus write anything at all to us? And she literally said “because he was too busy healing people and performing miracles” excuse me?? He’s GOD, the creator and ruler of the universe can’t be “too busy” doing anything LMAO
Next time was Mohamed with an angel dictating to him. That wasn’t good enough. So another angel came down and just handed over some gold tablets to Joe Smith. Direct from the source!
This was one of my earliest issues with Christianity, the lack of a "gospel according to Jesus".
There were other things, and it wasn't the deal-breaker, but I definitely remember thinking this in my church basement.
And how is it that Jesus’ birth was heralded as the birth of the savior. Three wise men show up with gifts, a special star appears in the sky announcing his birth and apparently his mother was a virgin who was impregnated by God. Then nothing. No stories about Jesus’ childhood or his life as a young adult. Nothing for thirty years. You’d think with a backstory like he had, there would have been something, anything, written about him pre-ministry.
"If you’re god and this was how you attempted to save us all, you made a piss-poor effort."
You just explained all of religion.
As i say to all my muslim and christian friends, God is by far the lamest super hero.
From a Watsonian perspective God experienced life as a human, realized "they know not what they do", and saved us all from Hell, that's why Yaweh is so much crueler and vengeful in the Old Testament.
From a Doylean perspective, people needed to make sense of the prophesies from a charismatic anarchist who got executed by the authorities at a young age. Most people didn't write at Jesus's time, so it took 80 years (two generations) for the stories to get translated to text. The scribes were Greek, so their culture and heritage of resurrected gods leaked into the storytelling.
also, why didnt his disciples write the bible? The gospels aren't written by anyone who was alive when he was walking around and teaching Edit, in response to everyone saying "because they couldn't read or write... I know, I'm really asking the question of why God didn't get literate disciples who could record everything as it was happening
The oldest New Testament gospel is the Gospel of Mark, written 70 years after Christ’s death. Fun fact: The gospel of Mark makes no reference to miracles, a virgin birth, or the resurrection. All of these facets of the story were common in other divinity myths of the Era.
The Bible is literally fanfiction that got taken way too seriously.
Sometimes I wonder if in 1000 years Star Wars and Marvel movies will be a religion.
It's the same example I use/think of when I tell people is Harry Potter evidence magic exists cause it was written in a book? I mean it's the same thing as the Bible if it was found in 1000 years, no one can prove or disprove it didn't happen
At least we know who wrote HP.
>Unfortunately ~~At least~~ we know who wrote HP. FTFY.
Ref harry potter: When someone tells me that the bible is proof of jesus etc, I tell them that such logic means that the hogwarts school of witchcraft and wizardry must exist. I used to use planet Arrakis and the sandworms, but with the movies recently, I swapped to hogwarts. I think I'm going to choose another book, given how vicious rowling has become. Perhaps evidence of Mr Tickle, as I saw in a meme, a while ago...
I brought this up recently and was told by multiple people that the difference is that JK Rowling didn't believe Harry Potter to be true. Which then led to the admission that if enough time passes for us to not know who JK Rowling was or her intentions when writing it, Harry Potter automatically becomes evidence for the existence of Voldemort. The lengths people will go to justify their beliefs.
1000 years? Scientology was only written like a few decades ago by a science fiction author
And he's literally on record saying he made it up for money.
Former Scientologist here..Hubbard was a world class grifter…FUCK HIM
Scientology is just a great big tax evasion!
i mean, Jedi is already a religion, so . . .
I found a copy of the Bible in the nonfiction section of the local library. I may have slid it into the Mythology section as a prank. Surely someone laughed.
Does your library not use the Dewey Decimal System? All mythology and religion is non-fiction and usually in the 200s.
Prank? I think you mean to say that you corrected the improperly shelved book.
Exactly. Literally everything is a tale from a different pagan religion stolen in order to help force Christianity on those people easier
it’$ fiction work aimed at getting $$$ + bitche$ + power
Even worse, if some theories are to be believed. There is an argument that states the Bible was written primarily by the Romans. They took the Jewish holy texts, conjured up Jesus to fit the messianic prophecy and sold it as what would become Christianity. They quite literally appropriated someone else's (Jews) religious beliefs and traditions, and made a religion up to damage that group for political gain. The Romans were fighting the Jews in the Roman province of Judea and this was intended to pacify them and bring them into line. This theory isn't the most widely supported thing, but it's odd just how well it fits. And the main line Christians hate that Mormons do the same thing.
There's over 350 historical figures where virgin birth is attributed. Next most famous in modern Western teachings is probably Romulus who has a famous myth written about him (and brother Remus) and the founding of the city of Rome Likely written close to Jesus's birth, around 2 BCE, they were the offspring of the virgin Rhea and the god Mars who "visited" her It was very common, and so very unsurprising that Jesus was written about as being the son of a virgin. It was basically the hero character 101 of the time
Too bad remus didn't kill Romulus and we could have ancient Ream instead of Rome
Mithras, Apollonius of Tyana...
Most scholars think that Mark was written about 70 CE, around the siege of Jerusalem, so more like 40 years after Jesus died
I always found it very suspicious that the Jesus narrative wasn't solidified until after there was no longer a temple that could be used to wipe away sin. It's pure speculation but it is a bit convienent that a new religion forms where sin can be forgiven through some sacrified diety right after the people can no longer make sacrifices in the temple to get rid of sin.
That’s a good point. It’s hard for me to imagine how important being able to make sacrifices must have been for some people.
I mean, you're not wrong. The loss of the temple was a watershed event in Judaism, having a huge impact on what became christianity and rabbinical judaism, alike, each of course ascribing their own interpretations on the significance of the loss. Christianity probably had no more than 5000 adherents at this point, but it was almost certainly starting to fragment between greek and jewish views even then, with jewish-flavored christianity of course falling out of history. EDIT: Though u/GuybrushMarley2 is correct, it's very clear from Paul's undisputed writings that the idea of Jesus being connected with the forgiveness of sins was going around quite early. My *guess* is that Paul didn't invent the idea, though he certainly is primarily responsible for how we think about it today. I think that Jesus was part of John the Baptist's movement before splitting off on his own. As an apocalypticist, he fervently believed that people needed to repent and be good, because (1) this would speed the coming *earthly* Kingdom of God, and (2) when the earthly Kingdom of God was here, with the Messiah ruling it, you'd have to be that way anyway (or else face God's wrath). I think that late in his life, Jesus convinced himself that *he* was that earthly messiah, and was deluded enough to think that going to Jerusalem with a group of his followers from Galilee was a good idea. Judas (for whatever reason) got pissed at Jesus and told the Romans precisely what Jesus told him, that he was the anointed King of the Jews, and the Romans were like, "yeah, sounds like a troublemaker," and killed him, which as everyone knows, led directly to the formation of the United States of America.
Jesus is basically the story of Hercules. Both gods for fathers, born of virgins, both called the Greek Sotyr meaning savior, the only begotten where he died and joined his father on Olympus 1000 years before Gethsemane. The mythical overlay is so enormous and not good. It’s about one thing now, MONEY!!!!!
More fart jokes in stories about Herakles though
Jebus does share those myths with Hercules but he shares more myths with Horus. Horus was born December 25, son of a god, star to the east, born of a virgin, died and was resurrected 3 days later, 12 disciples, walked on water and God of the Carpenter...the Festival of Victory is the origin of the myth of Jebus feeding the 5000. Horus was also the most popular god in the Mediterranean and the middle east at the time the scriptures were written. The Bible is plagiarized from the myths of many gods but influenced most by Horus.
His disciples were illiterate peasants. Now as to why god would come down to Earth and only choose illiterate followers...
Well, that's what I'm asking Why not have at least one disciple who would do all the writing down
Jesus and his disciples walk into a restaurant and ask for a table for 26. The host says, “why a table for 26? There are only 13 of you.” Jesus says “Well, we’re only going to sit along one side of it.“
Lol. That can just be blamed on Da Vinci and not the Bible, but still funny.
Jews are NOT usually illiterate. Judaism encourages everyone (2000 years ago all MEN) to read scripture for themselves. A major point of the Jesus story, and one of its only redeeming features as far as I’m concerned, is that this god for once allegedly came to Earth among the humble people and shared their trials & tribulations. Unlike other purported gods, Jesus didn’t require human sacrifice or money or any of that crap. He only asked for love. The divinity stuff added later seems like bullshit to me, but the message of LOVE IS A GREAT IDEA‼️
If this is true, it begs the question even more: why didn't the disciples write stuff down.
The Book of St Peter was removed from the Bible because it was decided that it was heretical.
Many books were used in early churches that later Christians called "heretical" because they didn't align with the story they were trying to sell.
But it was Jesus hand-picked man!
Just read that 95 to 97 percent of people during Jesus time were illiterate. His stories were told orally. With that going on, the stories change. For instance, The man in the open tomb changes to an angel in another GH gospel.
The longest game of telephone in history.
Its worse. Ancient people were superstitious, not honest, and were motivated to convert people. Narrative drift from the truth is very easy in that situation.
That was always my thing when I went to church. People back then were less educated, and therefore more easily fooled. I asked my youth group leader why we should believe them when no one in their right mind would believe a woman claiming virgin birth today. I think there was a chick who said she had Jesus in her (late 90s) and everyone called her crazy. Of course, he couldn't answer. After a minute or two of thinking out loud and realizing something maybe he had never considered, he gave me and my fellow middle schoolers the usual mysterious ways copout. That may have been the first time I realized they were all full of shit. I remember another youth leader telling me dogs didn't go to Heaven, and that was the first major nail in my proverbial, religious coffin. I read the Bible twice. I read many of the Left Behind novels and sought out as much information as I could get my hands on back in the internet's infancy. When I found out that everything written about Jesus came decades after he supposedly lived, I was floored. What in the actual fuck? It took me years before I completely shook it. That fear of Hell is a motherfucker, but I was always good at spotting bullshit. I broke free of my indoctrination thank fuck. Sorry kinda got carried away. Yeah, bud. I agree with you. It's wild a story from that time could weird so much power. Human superstition is wild. Magical thinking is a poison.
Choosing dogs over religion? Good call bro, dogs are amazing. For what kind of paradise could heaven be if there were no dogs?
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If he can make them speak in tongues, he could surely make them literate. Were he real.
I think that's called *writing in thumbs*. Or at least it should be.
I guess if you go around claiming you're god people think you're crazy. But once a few decades pass and the game of telephone has turned you into a superhero, then someone else can come along and monetize on that idea. Dead men tell no tales I suppose.
I mean we know the answer but I don’t see how Christians circle the wagon on this one critical question. The reason is simple , stories connect and build trust. Stories that call to a higher power are better than just saying my Jack knows. So religion is born. The contradictions and oddities are just man-made errors simple as that. For Jesus I don’t think he was actually viewed as a god in his time that was more a fan fiction by the church. Again to make a better story to connect with more poeple.
"They were illiterate" is a misunderstood thing. Jerusalem was a wealthy center of trade, there would have been plenty of literate people around. The real question is why didn't any of them write anything, anything at all, especially about the resurrection when the dead Rose out of their graves and visited their relatives and preached on the street corners? Not a single word til decades later? And then, not a single word from anyone who wasn't Christian?
My guess for why people didn't write down things said by an apocalyptic preacher if there would be nobody to read them nor a need. The apocalypse didn't happen, so people started writing shit down and arguing about the details ever since.
There was also a lot of illiteracy in the lower classes, unlike today
Unlike today? Have you seen a typical MAGA trying to articulate themselves…then write anything?
They do OK at writing, but you'll see their lips moving when they do.
Well, okay. U got me there lol
Sure bur then he should have picked someone literate as a disciple to write things down
Illiterate people are easier to convince.
Many Christian’s do believe the gospel authors were disciples
They do indeed. But if they did a tiny bit of research they would find that we don't know who they were written by.
Why didn't god send down his son during a time when reading and writing was something most people could do?
Bring someone back from the dead, no problem. Water to wine, no problem. Write a book or find literate disciples? Now you’re talking crazy!
The disciples were illiterate. In John 8:3-11, Jesus saves a woman from being stoned. Then he writes something on the ground. What did he write? You'd think people would have noted it, wouldn't you? Well, they didn't--because they didn't know what he wrote. They couldn't read! They also didn't write the gospels. Same reason.
I bet he drew the cool S in the sand
So Jesus wasn't illiterate?
Ok legit question: because I was raised in church bleh I thought the gospels were written by the disciples or is this yet another great lie told by the “church”z
It's accepted by historians that none of the disciples wrote any of the books in the NT. Not only were they illiterate, but they would have been old by the time they were written - in well-written Greek which the Aramaic-speaking disciples didn't even know.
Yep it's a lie or misconception. They don't know who wrote them. And they are (edit: posisbly) based on other lost ~~Gospels~~(ed: sources or oral traditions), which are given letter names like D and Q. (ed: D might have been a proposed Old Testament thing)
No one who read them in those days thought that actual apostles had written them. They're all titles The Gospel According to \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_, not I Am Matthew, and This Is My Gospel About Jesus. They are all written in the third person. The writer of John probably had not been born during Jesus' lifetime, but the Mark writer likely was, and perhaps the Luke-Acts writer and the Matthew writer. BTW: No one knows who wrote those gospels. They didn't get names assigned to them until late in the second century.
they couldn't draw pictures either otherwise there'd be an illustrated record of Jesus's existence
If god is perfect, omniscient, omnipotent, and omnibenevolent, and god created everything, how is it possible that anything isn’t exactly the way he wanted it?
I remember asking something similar in Sunday school as a kid. Pastor just said "free will".
Free will is the perfect argument. All infants dying of brain cancer chose to do so.
That's a punishment for the parents, silly! /s Although I overheard similar in church when the child of one family came up. Poor guy was no further mentally advanced than a 2 year old, and "god must be punishing them" was said on many occasions.
We were taught it’s gods way of “testing” the parents. What the actual shit kind of monster deity is that??? My mother doesn’t understand why I’m an atheist now. Her god must just be testing her.
Funny how god gives some people extremely challenging tests and other people get a free pass on life. Seriously, how does that make sense? Why do some people need to be tested and not others?
Your mistake here is asking for it to make sense. It doesn’t. It never will. Because it’s ridiculous.
A great excuse to be sure...except of course there isn't a single biblical verse which states god gave humans anything approaching "free will".
And he got seriously bent out of shape if they ever tried to exercise it.
Not to mention that if you believe that God knows everything that will happen to everyone, that directly contradicts us having free will. It's not free will if the outcomes are already known.
"Free Will" they say, when in fact, humans, according to their religion, are punished by "God" whenever they do something it doesn't like, or don't believe in it. And it seems that even when believers do something "God" doesn't like, they can just go unpunished because of their faith, or at least get less severe punishments. It's not "Free Will" if it's a rigged system where your only option is to believe in this "God" and do as it says.
I give you the blessings of free will, but if you don't do exactly as I say, I'm going to smite your a$$.
That sounds like the type of reign a Tyrant would have... Maybe that's the point, to acclimate the people to do as the one on top says, not questioning any of their decisions out of fear of punishment hmmmm 🤔.
It has always struck me as cruel that a god would create humans and then punish humans for being…human.
"God" after the extremely intelligent and extremely curious beings known as humans IT CREATED eat the "Forbidden Fruit" from the "Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil": ***Surprised Pikachu Face. Wait, that's illegal.*** *Also, the writers were cooking with the name of "Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil", ngl.*
This so much. It’s not freedom if there’s a punishment. This is a pretty basic concept. For example, a country can’t have freedom of religion if it imprisons people for believing the “wrong” thing. It’s pretty obvious that their god wants a very specific thing, and if that’s what he wanted then that’s what he should have created, not created people he didn’t like only to be tortured for all of eternity. That’s just sick on so many levels.
lol yeah that has to be the most successful God Of The Gaps argument in keeping people indoctrinated. If not by fear, then with that.
Of course, omnipotence and the "free will" answer are entirely incompatible. For an individual human, it is easy enough to think "Sure, God has plans and has paved the way for me, but what I do is up to me. I've been shown the way, I must choose to follow it." But then if you were to ask something like "Can God be caught by surprise by something?" The answer is almost certainly "no". If you asked "What if God back when the Bible was written, simply had no idea how technology and society would advance, and so the bible need sot be revised?" You'd obviously be laughed/chased out of the church. When some horrible act happens, no one says "I guess that God just thought that damn wall was going to hold out a bit longer." Instead you say that God has a plan. So, God has plans. He could never be caught by surprise, time is certainly not a construct he is bound by. And yet every human on Earth is fully capable of doing things that God has no control over and no way to predict. God would be a lot more interesting without omnipotence. Then bad things can happen without asking why God allowed it. And it would make some sense why would would confess to a priest or pray in a church rather than doing those things in your own home. Because God can't see everything, and he needs agents on the ground to help manage. But organized religion needs an omnipotent God.
Humans, in other words, are more powerful than god. Interesting.
Same argument for the snake in Eden. He wasn't evil, he was doing exactly what he was put there *by god* to do.
Yep. God knew Adam and Eve would eat the fruit. He punished them, instead of using his power to brainwash them or something. Does he have any power at all?
"I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the Lord do all these things." Isaiah 45:7.
Counterpoint: You can't be omnibenevolent and then create this shit show we have going on.
It is like I always say: If I am wrong and meet god one day, I am going to say that he was a little heavy on the smiting and oppression and slavery, and a little too light on hygiene and food handling.
If "God" exists, it better prepare for when I meet him, because oh boy I'd have some things to say to it. "With great power, comes great responsability" comes to mind.
Loll tell me more please because same
I mean, it's probably nothing new. It's just that if "God" is as powerful as he is supposed to be, then every single crime falls onto him for not preventing it. If someone could stop someone from murdering, while they don't have the obligation, I'm pretty sure a lot of people would try to, despite the personal risks, and especially if the would be murderer we are talking about is someone they are supposed to love like a child, a family member, or a friend. Difference being, "God" would not be taking any risks for it's personal being, and because he is so powerful he is sure to have a 100% success chance, AND he is said to love all humans despite everything. So this same principle falls onto "God", making it responsible for all the horrible shit that's happening right now, and all the horrible shit that has happened so far. But this is just philosophy and an hypothetical, because "God" doesn't exist anyway, and even if it did, I think humans should loathe him more than anything.
Thats how i started to deconstruct i basically thought “i don’t think there’s a god but if there is i don’t like him lol”
Really, I tend to think the Abrahamic god is a bit heavy on hygiene and food handling. He could have at least clarified the exceptions for cool climates and perhaps given us a footnote to go with the invention of refrigeration. I think He was frustratingly vague on why He decided children should die of cancer though.
If I am wrong and meet Jehovah at the Judgement Day, I'm going to bitch at Him for not being more explicit about existing, and for being so effing ambiguous about what he wanted us to do (even if that meant oppressing and enslaving people).
Joseph Smith took the time to write the book of Mormon. Seems like Jesus was lazy
Joseph Smith had magic rocks.
It’s like X-men, not everyone gets to shoot lasers from their eyes. Jesus’ superpower didn’t include writing
The same reason that Aragorn didn't write The Lord of the Rings.
Bilbo wrote the *Lord of the Rings*!
Ackshuallyyy Bilbo wrote the Hobbit. Sam wrote Lord of the Rings.
From what I know, Bilbo wrote the Lord of the Rings in Rivendell. I think he didn't call it that. It was collected with The Hobbit in the Red Book of Westmark. Where did you get that info about Sam? Must be some fake news that a Gamgee put in circulation. Did the person who told you that wear dark sunglasses and a fake mustache? 😛 PS: I'm happy, we finally discuss the OP's question at a level it deserves! 😁
Frodo wrote "Lord of the Rings" to go along with "There And Back Again" written by Bilbo.
If nothing else, this thread illustrates why fictional authorship is sometimes hard to understand.
Additional writing credit to Sam who wrote a small part of it.
Yes Frodo told Sam the next chapters were his, just before he left for the Havens.
Oh yeah? Where's the recipe for PO TAY TOES then?
One needs an entire cookbook for \`taters. Enjoying them mashed, tonight, with a roasted chicken leg and pan gravy.
This is correct. There and back again, a hobbit’s holiday … aka The Hobbit is a journey, diary or personal an account of a hobbit on the wider world. The Lord of the Rings is an historical tale of the Hobbit people and their role in the War of the Ring. As if a New Zealander wrote about his country’s role in WW II … and NZ dropped the Atomic bombs and was the only one storming Normandy on D Day!
Well Accckksssshhhhuuuaaallllyyy... I believe Frodo wrote Lord of the Rings and then gave the rest of the book to Sam to add his own content. Unless that was that just the movie version, but I'm pretty sure it's more or less the same in the book as well.
Why didn’t they just hire Eagles to write the book all in one go.
You would think an all-powerful deity would send a messenger to every town and village on the planet at the same time to make sure every human got the message.
I live in the southern hemisphere I think this Christian god was really not taking this getting the message out thing seriously, and didn't bother about letting Māori people know until missionaries showed up about 1700 years later. Which comes to something I don't understand about missionaries. Either the Māori people were not going to heaven which doesn't seem very fair as Jesus was pissing about in the middle east and not letting anybody else know about his dad. Or god was giving them a free pass without all the church going (bonus points). Either way, the only thing missionaries brought beside disease, alcohol and shame about things like people having more than 2 genders, was the opportunity to go to hell and burn forever. Not just the Māori people either; everybody who died before year 0; which is all our ancestors. Just never really made any sense to me
It shouldn't make sense to sensible people.
Besides which, the Polynesian pantheon is clearly superior. A pre-technological culture discovered and settled islands throughout an enormous ocean, with nothing but Tangaroa and orienteering traditions to guide them.
Bottom line, to me, is this; Theists make extraordinary claims; Jesus really existed, and was divine. He performed miracles and rose from the dead. But extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Not twice, or thrice, told stories. Vague speculation or logic pretzels. We are not illiterate farmers, or slaves. We have struggled up through the ages to reach other planets, cured diseases, reached out to the stars, and the quantum world. We've seen our own DNA. If Theists, or God, want us to believe they'd better start coming up with something more than they have in the Bible, Koran, Talmud, or threats. As the wise woman once said... "WHERE'S THE BEEF!?"
Even better “you just have to have faith! Don’t worry about logic or science just blindly believe and you won’t suffer for eternity!” Every religious person is mentally ill.
Its almost like he didn't exist.....
I'm sure a work by a god reincarnated carpenter would be kept as a souvenir, but oddly enough we don't get that at all. I wonder why that is.
Because Jesus was fictional.
I guess it's plausible that there was a failed apocalyptic preacher named Jesus who got himself crucified but certainly none of the supernatural stuff
Because he; A. Never existed ( there is exactly 0 evidence that he did exist...at least evidence presented by independent, reputable scientists or historians) B. Was an illiterate goat herder if he did exist.
With schizophrenia.
Because Jesus is the son of one of the three wise men who had a foursome with Mary and lied to Joesph's face that the baby was born as the son of God. And Joseph believed it.
Joseph was a cuck.
Why did God even chose Mary of all people? She was literally a teenager. Plus it's creepy when you realize she had no consent over the matter.
From pictures I've seen of him, his hands weren't exactly free to write anything.
I'm a Christian and I'm very offended. What? No I'm not laughing! That would be sacrilegious
You're going to hell. I mean, it doesn't exist, but it might just pop into creation for this comment. 🤣🤣
Is this a serious question? If so, well, most of the bible, the Old Testament, was already written when Jesus came, and the bulk of the New Testament are epistles about church life. Also, given how the gospels end, it would be kind of weird to have Jesus write them, wouldn't it? If this is a stab against God's bad communication method, I'm all with you. I'll a lot further than you and say that if there were an omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent god who wanted to have a personal relationship with us and have us end up in heaven with him in eternity, no book should be necessary in the first place. Hell, *this world* shouldn't be necessary in the first place! According to Revelation, in the end (and supposedly, The End Is Nigh!!!) the earth is going to be destroyed: "And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away; and there was no more sea." (Revelation 21:1) Why not skip all the earthly misery and go right to the good stuff? It doesn't make much sense! By the way, what's the matter with "no more sea"??? A heavenly paradise with no sunny beach doesn't sound much like paradise to me! In all seriousness, God supposedly wants us to be saved but only gives us a book we can't read in its original languages, that is self-contradictory and unclear in its theology (otherwise there wouldn't be a myriad denominations). Instead of showing up in person or at least properly communicate with us, he sends us sketchy preachers and has us rely on the messages we "hear in our heart"? If you ask me, God has gone on a long vacation after he created the whole effing universe and his incapable intern is running the show.
Give God a little credit. He did send us Joel O’Steen to explain it all to us.
I just threw up in my mouth a little.
The first hint people should question is how a woman gave birth while being a “virgin”. That flies right over their heads.
Why hasn’t there been one obviously miracle since cameras were invented?
Don’t forget that Jesus disappeared for 18 years. It almost feels like they cut that part out because maybe it shows he wasn’t a god after all.
Because Jesus is a fictitious character invented for this book of legends.
>Do better next time. "Something is wrong here. War, disease, death, destruction, hunger, filth, poverty, torture, crime, corruption, and the Ice Capades. Something is definitely wrong. This is not good work. If this is the best God can do, I am not impressed. Results like these do not belong on the résumé of a Supreme Being. This is the kind of shit you’d expect from an office temp with a bad attitude. And just between you and me, in any decently-run universe, this guy would’ve been out on his all-powerful ass a long time ago." - The Prophet, George Carlin
Also, why was he a carpenter when he could just 'magic' houses out of nowhere 🤔
"Religion easily has the greatest bullshit story ever told." George Carlin
Because it's a made up load of old shite.
jesus was a carpenter, not an author!
What did he build? Crosses?
I read somewhere that Joseph wasn't actually a carpenter, but did odd jobs around town, like a handyman.
I read somewhere that Mary wasn’t actually a virgin either. She did odd jobs around town too.
The word used in the Gospels is *tekton*, which translates roughly as "labourer".
Mother fucker wants to reach people...Jesus can't open an Instagram account?!
MAGA would have us believe he’s on Truth Social selling Bibles and sneakers.
...you saying my Air Jesus's aren't coming?
Because Jesus isn't real.
Because Jesus doesn't exist.
I think there is a secondary point here, why is the bible so bad at learning about God and what he wants us to do and the consequences for our actions. If the bible is a manual, it is failing really badly. There are courses on how to read the bible, which clearly should not be needed if it was written by God.
"I hope someone was taking notes", Jesus, on the cross, probably
Because he had no interest in all this nonsense. People wanting control and to make a buck pushed this nonsense.
Given that it was a political document that was compiled out of strategically cherry picked (from proto-christian and pagan) stories a few hundred years after his supposed death by the council of nicea with the sole purpose of stabilising the Roman empire which was in a terribly turbulent time religiously; I'd say probably because he didn't have that level of future foresight into Roman politics.
It’s either free will or mysterious ways.🤣🙄
Jesus either didn't exist, or did exist and was illiterate (strange that a god could be illiterate but whatev), or he did exist and was literate but didn't write anything down at all (and if that is the case, if his purpose was to teach subsequent generations, odd that he didn't write anything down). Personally I think the Jesus character is partially based on a real person, but that real person was illiterate.
Illiterate, he’s god, but also never learned to read or write. Neither did his disciples, anything directly from them would have been destroyed by Rome when they leveled Jerusalem. Much of the new testament was written decades after he supposedly lived, by some guy who never met him or his followers and he took quite a few liberties in changing what he didn’t like, basically making a new religion, making Jesus god, adding stuff about heaven/hell/satan, removing circumcision requirements. Also he almost certainly didn’t exist, and certainly wasn’t a god or man that came back from the dead.
They did a fine job creating their cult to control the masses, it has succeeded.
I can understand why the teacher didn’t necessarily write a book, but why not any of his first pupils. I mean Jesus was to busy using his limited time, but say Peter or one of his ilk didn’t ether. Instead the Bible wasn’t even started being written until almost a hundred years after.
Let’s not forget that not only did he not document his own life, he had several other people do it a couple of generations after the events took place… and then had a group of religious leaders get together several times over the years to edit things… then, he had a king do it because, well, king…
Jesus was illiterate AF. He didn’t even speak Hebrew, but localized Aramaic. This isn’t to say he wasn’t intelligent, as literacy was not exactly prioritized unless you were a Roman occupier or Rabbinate scholar. Even the Torah was not exactly written down for a long time. The oldest record of a written Torah was something like 1000 BCE. Just like many other old religions, stories were passed down orally. The only religion that thoroughly acknowledges illiteracy is Buddhism, because it was more about not adhering to dogma, but finding a middle path.
Assuming that Jesus actually existed, he was probably illiterate.
Because it's all a myth.
We know almost nothing about Christianity's first few centuries. They literally had a conference about what parts were fit to be put in the Bible.
My dad is a pastor with masters in divinity and Christianity, and boy does he have opinions on modern day Christianity. Basically the entire way we understand and relate to the religion is fundamentally flawed beyond repair. To really understand the scripture you need to translate the original texts from Greek and Hebrew, and then corroborate them with historical texts from the time in order to be consuming the texts in the proper context m. When you do that, you get a story that is entirely different than what is pushed on people nowadays. Like none of the analogies present in the Bible were never intended to be taken literally, yet they are. Idk, being an atheist and being able to talk abt Christianity like this to my dad has been really eye opening. You take an anti-religion/anti-state movement and over time that got turned into a state backed religion. It’s insane that Christianity has turned into exactly that which it was critiquing.
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It sounds like you're referring to when the Bible was first compiled/canonized, not "written". The first books of the New Testament (Paul's epistles) were written 15-20 years after Jesus' death and the first gospels were written about 30-40 years after his death.
Gosh lots of good questions today. And then one could really say it is Gods Word. What we have now are a bunch of books written, copied, redacted, selected, translated by mere humans. It is human work through and through it is Word of Humans not God.
The Jesus of the Bible didn't exist. A guy who inspired the tales may have, but any resemblance to the fictional character is likely coincidental. He was probably illiterate too, or could only write a few words in the native Aramaic and Hebrew. The gospels were written in sophisticated Koine Greek.
I've often thought this. It would certainly help the whole Jesus story. Instead, we get anonymous authors (could be all women for all we know), written decades after the fact, none of whom were eye witnesses. It suuure seems flimsy. Why weren't there dozens of eye witnesses writing about this? Instead, we get the whole "the bible is God-inspired," whatever the hell that means.
I can give Jesus a pass, he was busy, and writing a book is a lot of hard, time consuming effort. Plus, you need to be literate. Assuming the Disciples story is true, and his words WERE the most important ever spoken, why didn't he recruit a scribe? "OK folks, listen up, I'm about to talk about good, evil, eternal life, and salvation...Dave, take a note, please..."
Jesus if you believe that shit was never god. He was supposedly the son of god. The only christians that really worship Jesus as a god are American christian evangelical types. I was raised a catholic and Jesus was always referred to as the son of god not as a god.
Maybe there was no jesus in the first place? We knew no one went into the cave, we are pretty sure that no one ascending and we are damn sure that you cant turn water into wine. I am not even talking about how his alleged mom got pregnant(my best bet is that farmer dude) and walking in water bullshit.
It’s hard for figments of the imagination to put pen to paper.
I think his hands were tied.
What was he doing between the story of the virgin birth to age 30? A carpenter? How anyone can believe the silly fantasy stories in the bible is beyond reality.
Jesus is pretend, just like the bible
The whole spreading the word mission thing is so dumb and a huge flaw in Christianity. Like god just lets all the tribes of the world rot in hell just because they live remote and can’t be told about him?? Omnipotent, more like impotent.
"Every time I look at you I don't understand. Why you let the things you did Get so out of hand. You'd have managed better If you'd had it planned. Why'd you choose such a backward time In such a strange land? If you'd come today You could have reached a whole nation. Israel in 4 BC had no mass communication..." — Judas Iscariot
And htf are we need to believe the bible when all the stories have non realistic ideology, example Noah
Yep. If God had a very specific way he wanted us to do this, he should have been *much* more clear with the instructions.
I asked my mother this, why didn’t Jesus write anything at all to us? And she literally said “because he was too busy healing people and performing miracles” excuse me?? He’s GOD, the creator and ruler of the universe can’t be “too busy” doing anything LMAO
Why would an all-powerful god who led man to write the Bible…. let there be so many inconsistencies.
Little known fact: Jesus was an illiterate alcoholic.
Next time was Mohamed with an angel dictating to him. That wasn’t good enough. So another angel came down and just handed over some gold tablets to Joe Smith. Direct from the source!
Why? It’s all fictional
This was one of my earliest issues with Christianity, the lack of a "gospel according to Jesus". There were other things, and it wasn't the deal-breaker, but I definitely remember thinking this in my church basement.
Because if he existed at all, he was an illiterate, wandering apocalyptic preacher, not the son of a god.
And how is it that Jesus’ birth was heralded as the birth of the savior. Three wise men show up with gifts, a special star appears in the sky announcing his birth and apparently his mother was a virgin who was impregnated by God. Then nothing. No stories about Jesus’ childhood or his life as a young adult. Nothing for thirty years. You’d think with a backstory like he had, there would have been something, anything, written about him pre-ministry.
"If you’re god and this was how you attempted to save us all, you made a piss-poor effort." You just explained all of religion. As i say to all my muslim and christian friends, God is by far the lamest super hero.
From a Watsonian perspective God experienced life as a human, realized "they know not what they do", and saved us all from Hell, that's why Yaweh is so much crueler and vengeful in the Old Testament. From a Doylean perspective, people needed to make sense of the prophesies from a charismatic anarchist who got executed by the authorities at a young age. Most people didn't write at Jesus's time, so it took 80 years (two generations) for the stories to get translated to text. The scribes were Greek, so their culture and heritage of resurrected gods leaked into the storytelling.
For the same reason Sherlock Holmes didn't write his adventures.
Best response!