By the way pericles. The 3 alternatives you say are a product of evangelical brainwashing, please tell me what other alternatives there are! Either jesus really thought he was God but was massively deluded, ie lunatic, or he knew he wasnt God, and so was telling the biggest whopper of all time, which would also make him very evil as he would be leading millions astray in their spritual search, or... he was telling the truth. In which case, he is God. Please tell us the other alternatives. By the way, I dont know if anyone noticed in the narnia film, the original debate in this thread, the professor used the same theory. He asked if lucy was known to lie, or if she was crazy, and when the children denied this, he concluded she must be telling the truth.

Genesis
In your last post you asked what other alternatives are there to "Liar, Lunatic or Lord" correct?
How about the following:

1) Jesus is a mythical person. The result of the addition of several different myths.

2) Jesus was a real historical person but the gospellers deliberately misreported what he said & did. In other words he never said he was god but the writers of the gospels wrote that he did.
After all Jesus wrote NOTHING! All we have are what other people say he said & did. And they were hardly unbiased writers. As the writer of John put it "This is written that you may believe". In other words they were NOT writing history but missionary tracts.

3) Jesus did claim to be the Christ & the Son of God but that these terms have been misunderstood. For example Judaism did NOT teach that the messiah would be God but merely a righteous king. That's why several people were referred to in the bible as the massiah eg Cyrus.
While the term "Son of God" in Judaism merely means someone who puts God's will before ANYTHING else.

4) Jesus did claim to be the messiah but [because in judaism the messiah was supposed to liberate Israel from its opressors & reign as king] & Jesus was killed then the writers had to find a reason for this or abandon belief in Jesus as the messiah. The gospells are the result. In this view they are still not history but the result of deep theological musings.

There you go Genesis there are 4 other possibilities. C. S. Lewis' argument fails. No doubt you find none of these other alternatives attractive. Might I suggest that's because you have al;ready made up your mind before you've examined the evidence. In other words, been brainwashed.

Edi, “There is evidence the four Gospels were circulating together by 120 AD.”

Genesis, “These guys wrote something that they were eyewitnesses to. It may have been 30 or so years later, but they were still eyewitnesses.”

Historians know when those texts where written. The writing style wasn't used before 75AD, most were written in the 2nd century in the style of the time. They weren't brought together until 650AD and were written in Greek not Hebrew, which was the language of the people. The texts were written by Greek scribes, thats fact.

When you take into account the glaring differences in what is written, you can see where truth lies

Mark's gospel names Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome as the first early-morning tomb visitors. Matthew's gospel names only Mary Magdalene and the other Mary in its Easter story-line. John's gospel states that it is Mary Magdalene alone who is present at Jesus' grave, while Luke's gospel covers all of the bases by stating that Mary Magdalene, the other Mary, Joanna, and some "other women" were present and accounted for on Easter morn.

And what about all of the different Easter event announcers. We've got Mark's young boy dressed in white, Matthew's lightening laden, pure-as-snow angel of God. Luke's dazzlingly robed seraphs, and John's two heavenly messengers who somehow morph into Jesus himself.

How do you reconcile all of the wide-ranging descriptions and images of a de-entombed once dead man now alive again. Images like Mark's no-bodied Jesus who goes ahead of us into Galilee, or Matthew's apparitional Jesus who offers roadside greetings to those passing by.

Or John's soon-to-be-ascended don't-touch-me Jesus who appears among the lilies as a ghost-like gardener, or Luke's unrecognizable Jesus who walks and talks and wines and dines on the outskirts of Emmaus and then vanishes into thin air?

Good fiction has always sold well throughout the ages, each scribe was trying to out do others with the best version of the myth.

I must be slippng, I think I just mentioned some scripture

Pericles. Edi explained why copies of copies etc made over a short period of time are more reliable. We can double check the translator/copier got it right and over time whether there was any loss. A gap of 1000 years with no extant original puts a heavy weight on the translator. We have to hope what he copied from (we no longer have it) was a good translation and that he knew the language/historical context well. If he didn’t like or understand parts of say, the Iliad, we are none the wiser. The gap between the original and surviving text is 1000 years. That Homer wrote the Iliad as we have it now is not questioned.

The interior and exterior evidence supporting the Gospels dwarfs anything we have of any other ancient event and is treated with ruthless skepticism. This is mere prejudice.

Blessed replied elegantly to your query about slavery Azliz.

Paul was concerned about people misrepresenting Our Lord. Turning Christ into a Lenin, a revolutionary – “set all the slaves free - rebel against Rome!” Paul’s care was to prevent the hijacking of Christ’s message.

Aziliz I think you’ll make a great Christian apologist one day.

I’m sorry you felt fear reading the Bible, it was a Blessing you were released from it. Don’t take it literally, remember St Thomas said “everything that is received is received according to the manner of the recipient.”

Most aren’t terrorized reading the Bible as you were. The line from Leviticus you think God commands human sacrifice:

“Leviticus 27:28-29

The law mentioned in these two verses has been appealed to by the enemies of Divine revelation as a proof, that under the Mosaic dispensation human sacrifices were offered to God; but this can never be conceded. Had there been such a law, it certainly would have been more explicitly revealed, and not left in the compass of a few words only, where the meaning is very difficult to be ascertained; and the words themselves differently translated by most interpreters.”

‘Preparatio Evangelica’ explains the similarity of other religions to Christianity.

Patient Aziliz: There were a tremendous number of slaves in the nazi type Roman Empire.
This new emerging religion did not have the power or mandate to abolish it.
Had they caused an uprising there would have been a massacre and there would have been many well fed lions.
Then all the slain slaves would have been immediately replaced, without slavery the Empire would have collapsed many years sooner than it did.
If any slave ran away then when caught straight into the lions at the Colosseum.
Paul did teach the converted slave owners to treat their slaves like brothers/sisters.
Remember also that a Roman male was the head of the family and could with impunity kill any or all of his family as well as his slaves. Hope this helps, numbat

Bosk.
1. Jesus was a real historical person, and even most athiests will agree with that.

2. As I said in a previous post, the writers of the gospel all went to their deaths for saying jesus was God. SO I doubt they purposley misreported their story.

3. There are many verses in the bible that refer to jesus as the son of God, God, the annointed one, saviour, etc etc, a lot of them in parables, so theres definatley no misunderstanding about what he meant to say, and who he said he was.

4. The jews misunderstood the scriptures regarding the messiah, and so they had their own ideas of who and what the messiah should be, but theres verses and even whole chapters like Isaiah 53 that talks about him having no majesty, nothing to attract us to him, a man of sorrows, crushed for our sins, his punishment brought us peace, by his wounds we are healed, led like a lamb to the slaughter. Hardly the view the jews had of their messiah. And psalm 22 where his crucifixtion is prophesied, says they have pierced my hands and feet, evil men have surrounded me. He was the servant king, he was meant to die. So the writers didnt have to find a reason for this and make it up. It was all in the scriptures. Prophesy fulfilled.

So bang goes those extra 4 possibilities bosk. ANy more??

alchemist. If you witnessed a huge car accident from the side of the road, and 3 other people witnessed the same accident form different points around the place. Do you think your statement to the police would be exactly the same as all the others?? 4 different people, same story to tell in different ways. One might have seen something you didnt and vice versa. Or you might have arrived a little time before the others did, and so there would be an extra bit in your statement.