What would the World be like if JESUS had never been Born?

Satt: nice to see you here my friend, but I think you may have posted your comment to the wrong thread, or else I've misunderstood your Bach contribution!

What would the World be like if JESUS had never been Born?

IMHO, Satt has given quite a good answer, bib! :wink:

Terry: you said, "There was no reason for anyone to delete a reference to Jesus, but Eusebius would have had reason to add one."

Your statement reveals your natural bias on this issue...You assert that Eusebius would be inclined to modify the Josephus text because of his Christian position, however, you rule out the possibility that a non-Christian, or even certain anti-Christians, such as Jewish scribes, would not be inclined to modify the Josephus text!

What would the World be like if JESUS had never been Born?

A lot of history would have been changed!

Bib, if I have any natural bias, it is FOR Christianity, since that is the religion in which I was raised and the predominant belief of this culture. My current opinions have been learned through reading the Bible, research, and interacting with Christians such as you. But YOUR extreme Christian bias is very apparent in your responses to people here.

Eusebius was well-known for his Christian bias. While Jewish scribes may have been biased, the text in question was not written by them, but by Arabs who would have had no reason for bias either way if the text was copied prior to the advent of Islam.

The writers of the NT had incentive to engage in creative fiction, as many did judging from the non-canonical gospels. It took the ecumenical councils centuries to decide which manuscripts were "pious frauds" and the stories that the excluded works tell of Jesus are quite enlightening. Some manuscripts were accepted by only one vote, and some were destroyed for political reasons.

Since the coming of the "son of God" to earth was not reported by the historians of the time, we know practically nothing about him. We do not know the date of his birth, his genealogy (the ones in Matthew and Luke do not agree and appear to have been invented to "prove" his Davidic heritage, and surely you do not seriously believe that one of them was really Mary's lineage!), what he did for the decade before he started preaching, whether he was ever married, why his alleged miracles and the crowds of people he attracted went unnoticed by historians, and why he never wrote down a single word.

It is quite incredible to me that the son of God would fail to document his message to the world. Why would God allow the words of Paul, who never even met Jesus and seems to have distorted his message out of all recognition, to become the foundation of the Christian church?

Bill, history would have been quite different if any of a number of great people had never been born, including Confucius, Siddhartha Gautama, Aristotle, Genghis Khan, Mohammed, Columbus, Jefferson, Hitler or anyone else who had a major impact on the world. And chaos theory tells us that it is possible that the birth of ANY child, even if their life was never noted in the history books, could have had a profound ripple effect on history.

Thomas Edison impacted this world in many ways. c.i.

Hello again Terry.

You said, "Why would God allow the words of Paul, who never even met Jesus..."
Did you ever read Acts 9? Here's a small excerpt:

Acts 9:3-5 "And as he [Saul] journeyed, he came near Damascus: and suddenly there shined round about him a light from heaven:
And he fell to the earth, and heard a voice saying unto him, Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?
And he said, Who art thou, Lord? And the Lord said, I am Jesus whom thou persecutest:..."

Terry: you said, "YOUR extreme Christian bias is very apparent in your responses to people here."

Could you quote me an example of this?
I'm curious as to whether you're confusing balanced debate in response to Biblical exegesis with out-and-out Christian proselytising.

Bib, actually - no example necessary. I believe that extreme bias of all sorts are visible and acceptable throughout this site. It is one of the reasons for it. My extreme bias's are relevant everwhere and so are Terry's and everyone everywhere. I also see balance in your style-------

Bill: thank you for your considered comments, my friend. :wink:

What would the world be like if Jesus HAD been born? (and people followed his supposed teachings?).

nelsonn, Man will be man, and nothing in history would have changed. There is proof of this conclusion; man did everything before the supposed birth of jesus, and it followed after his supposed birth. Same-o, same-o; no change. c.i.

My daughter in college told me the other day that BC had been changed to BCE, Before the Common Era and AD to BC, the Common Era. Maybe everyone but me has heard this, I hadn't. But I find it very refreshing.

Jesus, the missing years, moved to rome, couldn't get a green card, married an Italian chick, had no money, busted for shoplifting a few sardines and load of bread, lived a block from 23 skidoo, got a gig as a carny in a magic show, couldn'd afford a divorce, split back to Jerusalem, hung with the homey's, got a bad rap for being a gangsta, dissed authority, it was three strikes and out.

Where he was put to death with some crooks. c.i.

Your daughter is right Lola the first I heard BCE and ACE was at a lecture on Cycladic Art in Richmond, VA around 1991. Apparently ACE and BCE are used commonly in computer work, as well according to Satt fs and Equus. And archaeologists use those terms when dating finds from ancient excavations

Lola and JD, That's going to be hard for us old-timers to change. It's always gonna be AC and DC for us! LOL c.i.

LOL, c.i. You're so funny.

AC and DC - c.i., no one brought sex into this subject> Beside, wasn't Jesus a virgin from a virgin birth? hmmmmmmm?