Summations Only

Why do you keep saying this? It's obviously false. The Bible is full of evidence of Jesus' death for us.

Well presumably if God wanted to give us an important message, he'd want to give the message in the best possible way so that everybody can understand it. Why would he do it any other way? Why make it impossible to believe? The bible is very easy to understand. It was written for primitive, simple people in a story telling manner. It's only hard to understand when modern people are trying to make it fit into their reality - they know it doesn't work so they have to dissemble and contrive a fit.

Who says the best possible way is necessarily the easiest way for all of us to understand? Don’t you feel more proud of yourself when you achieve something that was hard for you? Don’t you value it more? I already answered your question in my last post but I’ll try again, and like I said, I don’t know but maybe we will value more the message if we had to work hard to understand it. It’s not impossible, but is not easy at all I think you are underestimating the Bible. And what makes you think those people were simple? What make us less simple? Technology? Our life is more fancy but we had the advantage of the knowledge accumulated through much more generations. By the way we also have created a lot of problems, haven’t we? What if they were smarter than us? What if they saw things we didn’t? You think the Bible is simple because you look at the surface, but you have to dig deeper to find it’s richness and that takes hard work. You don’t seem to be interested in the Bible, and that’s ok, you don’t have to like it; but if you ever try hard to look for God’s message in it, I’m sure you’ll find it

Well I'd start with the entire teaching profession, then work outwards.
It's obviously absurd to say that the harder the message is to understand the easier it is to understand. God's message isn't an IQ test - it's supposed to be universal. Well they lived 2000 years ago, it's normally regarded modern people know rather more than they did. Well, yes, exactly, we have that advantage - 2000 years of it. I understand the bible perfectly. It's a simple book of stories. Having to look further actually means giving a different meaning to the actual words. A believer could find 'god's message' in car repair manual - that's hardly the point.Now have a think - if you wanted to give a universal message to the world, would you do it this way?

You have trouble understanding the word evidence. It has stories but no evidence. In order to be evidence something else must corroborate it. Nothing else corroborates the bible, all other "evidence" is derived from the bible. There is no "evidence" independent of the bible.

Hello Theodoric,Do the writings of Josephus and Tacitus count?For all I know those accounts may or may not be reliable, but
I always thought there was a general consensus that person
we call Jesus did exist base on non biblical sources.Regards,

No, it is you who have a problem with the concept of evidence. The Bible is a collection of the writings of independent witnesses, it needs no outside corroboration.

They do not corroborate the bible. They are both decades removed from the supposed time of Jesus.See earlier posts on this.
Message 7

quote:

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TACITUS (c.112CE)

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Roughly 80 years after the alleged events Tacitus allegedly wrote a (now) famous passage about "Christ" - this passage has several problems however:
* Tacitus uses the term "procurator", used in his later times, but not correct for the actual period, when "prefect" was used.
* Tacitus names the person as "Christ", when Roman records could not possibly have used this name (it would have been "Jesus, son of Joseph" or similar.)
* Tacitus accepts the recent advent of Christianity, which was against Roman practice (to only allow ancient and accepted cults and religions.)
* (No-one refers to this passage for a millenium, even early Christians who actively sought such passages.)

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Thus, even if the Tacitus passage is not a later interpolation,
it is not evidence of a historical Jesus based on earlier Roman records,
but
merely a few details which Tacitus gathered from Christian stories circulating in his time (c.f. Pliny.)...

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JOSEPHUS (c.96CE)

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The famous Testamonium Flavianum is considered probably the best evidence for Jesus, yet it has some serious problems :
* the T.F. as it stands uses clearly Christian phrases and names Christ as Messiah, it could not possibly have been written by the Jew Josephus (who refused to acknowledge anyone "messiah"),
* The T.F. comes in several versions of various ages,
* The T.F. was not mentioned by Origen when he reviewed Josephus - Origen even says Josephus does NOT call Jesus the Messiah, showing the passage was not present in that earlier era.
* The T.F. first showed up in manuscripts of Eusebius, and was still absent from some manuscripts as late as 8th century.
* (The other tiny passage in Josephus is probably a later interpolation.)

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An analysis of Josephus can be found here:
LIGAUBO - Daftar Situs Judi Slot Online Gacor Deposit Pulsa Jackpot Terbesar

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In short - this passage is possibly a total forgery (or at best a corrupt form of a lost original.)

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The do not show any evidence independent of the bible.There are no independent, contemporary sources for the biblical Jesus. Christians claim there are but I am still waiting.

It was people who captured Long John Silver and it was God who helped him escape.No, wait. It was Jim Hawkins. That would be more plausible, wouldn't it?

Well given that the first gospel written was possibly 70 years out from Jesus death. It is not surprising that two of the most relished non biblical source is not without problems. Of course this is not a problem for the faithful, but those who would like some contemporary evidence, such as I, it simply is not available. I would not go as far as to say it will never be found though. Something possibly could yet be discovered.
Thanks for your informative reply.

Mark 16:16 "He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned." Messgaes such as this?Leviticus 20:13 "If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them."This is God's message? That disagrees with most decent people's morality.Edited by Larni, : Oh, you know?

As I understood the story it was that God inspired Jim Hawkins to make it all possible. That is the most plausible of all.

You seem to give to "best" and "easy" the same meaning It's universal as is available for anybody who wants to get it. It is not about IQ, it is about give your best to learn from God But that doesn't make them less smart. They could've had less knowledge in, say, technology than us, but they could've been more skilled than us at the moment of using their own knowledge. And like I said they could've seen things we didn't It seems to me that if you read a car repair manual with the same interest that you put in reading the Bible, all you will learn from the whole manual is how to check the engine oil level Again, it is not about how would I or you give a universal message, but how God has done it. If you wanted to understand God's message you'd need to accommodate to His way of talking, not the other way around. You look at it from your own logic and biases, you would need and easy message in order to believe, one that you wouldn't need to work hard to get it, and that I think, is not gonna happen

And where exactly does it says that "damned" means burn in hell forever? That's what I was asking That's not "God's message". God's message is in the whole Bible, is much more than that. There are many tough passages like that one, which I don't like either, but are there for a reason which I hope to understand one day. But from the little things I can get from the Bible is more than enough for me to realize that God loves us and wants us to be happy

Since when is something that is hard to learn the best? The harder something is the fewer people will understand it. The message is supposed to be universally understood. They could've been 500 feet tall, but I'm betting they weren't. Come on, they were iron age, poor, superstitious and illiterate. Why are all arguments put by believers back to front? I'm saying that if this god needed to give mankind the most important message it's possible to get and give it to everyone, he needed to do it in a much better way than he actually did. That isn't a 'knowing the mind of god' problem, it's a knowing the 'mind of man' problem. Any idiot could have done a better job.