Which Religion is the One True Religion?

à propos

gospelmancan2 wrote:

neologist wrote:

Welcome to the forum, gospelmancan2. I'm sure you will find a cornucopia of opinions. Enjoy!

Thanks much. I really hope that at the end of the day we can all respect each other no matter what we stand for. I have joined other forums to leave later because of personal attacks and mindless BS by the few on the many.

I hear Gumby just celebrated his 50th birthday. He hasn't aged a bit. I don't think you should be concerned if some of the posts get personal. You have to look at he big picture. Oftentimes a post will be a manifestation of some problem in a member's personal life that we have no way of knowing: chapped lips, paper cuts, hemorrhoids. You know the story. For some, it's fleas. Yep; I wouldna believed it; but it's true.

I don't count on much sympathy. After all they crucified Jesus and stoned Stephen didn't they?

Imaginery friend, how very à propos...

I rather thought that you were . . . you might learn to choose your words more carefully . . .

Certainly i could never argue with that, your personal brand of horseshit has an unexcelled pungency to which others can only wistfully hope to attain . . .

No, he is not imaginary, any historian can tell you that he walked the Earth.

"Now there was about this time, Jesus, a wise man, if it be lawful to call him a man, for he was a doer of wonderful works?-a teacher of such men as receive the truth with pleasure. He drew over to him both many of the Jews, and many of the Gentiles.

"He was (the) Christ; and when Pilate, at the suggestion of the principal men amongst us, had condemned him to the cross, those who loved him at the firs did not forsake him, for he appeared to them alive again the third day, as the divine prophets had foretold these and ten thousand other wonderful things concerning him; and the tribe of Christians, so named from him, are not extinct at this day" (Antiquities, XVIII, III).

Having studied history all of my life (at least since my grandfather started me with Wells' The Outline of History at age seven), i consider that a statement without foundation. That there was a certain Joshuah who aspired to the dignity of Rabbi while spreading the tenets of Essene philosophy in Palestine two thousand years ago, i do not doubt. I rather suspect that if one picked up a handful of gravel and flung it at a crowd in Judea two thousand years ago, there was a very great possibility of hitting one or more persons named Joshuah, any number of which may have claimed to be a Rabbi.

That is a far cry from asserting that the cobbled-together figure of "Jesus" to which the religionists of our era cling was an historical figure for the existence which there is undoubted proof.

You say you've studied history "all your life," yet those who usually make such accusations against the existence of the "Jesus figure" are certainly not historians, but are surprisingly ignorant of the facts.

First of all, the New Testament contains twenty-seven separate documents which were written in the first century A.D. These writings contain the story of the life of Jesus and the beginnings of the Christian church from about 4 B.C. until the decade of the A.D. nineties. The facts were recorded by eyewitnesses, who gave firsthand testimony to what they had seen and heard. "What was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we beheld and our hands handled, concerning the Word of Life" (I John 1:1, NASB).

Moreover, the existence of Jesus is recorded by the Jewish historian, Flavius Josephus, who was born in A.D. 37:

Quote:

"Now there was about this time, Jesus, a wise man, if it be lawful to call him a man, for he was a doer of wonderful works?-a teacher of such men as receive the truth with pleasure. He drew over to him both many of the Jews, and many of the Gentiles.

"He was (the) Christ; and when Pilate, at the suggestion of the principal men amongst us, had condemned him to the cross, those who loved him at the firs did not forsake him, for he appeared to them alive again the third day, as the divine prophets had foretold these and ten thousand other wonderful things concerning him; and the tribe of Christians, so named from him, are not extinct at this day" (Antiquities, XVIII, III).

And lthough this passage has been contested because of the reference to Jesus being the Christ and rising from the dead, the fact of His existence is not in question.

Cornelius Tacitus (A.D. 112), a Roman historian, writing about the reign of Nero, refers to Jesus Christ and the existence of Christians in Rome (Annals, XV, 44). Tacitus, elsewhere in his Histories, refers to Christianity when alluding to the burning of the temple of Jerusalem in A.D. 70. This has been preserved by Sulpicius Severus (Chronicles 30:6).

There are other references to Jesus or His followers, such as the Roman historian, Seutonius (A.D. 120) in Life of Claudius, 25.4, and Lives of the Caesars, 26.2, and Pliny the younger (A.D. 112) in his Epistles, X. 96.

I sit at the feet of the master as i learn the art of snide silliness.