I'm reading this book right now (Misquoting Jesus by Bart Ehrman) and it is fascinating. I knew that the Bible had a checkered history of fits and starts and edits, but not to the degree it really was patched together and heavily editted throughout time.

The earlist manuscript is almost 200 years after the death of Jesus. It is a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy.... and noone knows what is closer to the original, since we cna't compare it.

For example, there were numerous additions by scribes who didn't like the way things were written, or they made a mistake, or they tried to improve the writing.  Mark actually ends with the women running away: they never tell anyone about Jesus not being in the tomb - but scribes thought it ended badly and added a different ending.  This changes the theology immensly, since Mark has priority over the other texts (they copied from Mark and Q).

Not only that, but most Xian's who headed the church knew about it and often complained. Origen commmented that the Xians seemed like they were drunk when they copied the text since there were so many errors.

I'll add the specifics in a bit.  I am going to highlight my Bible with the real text and see how it reads.

Why the real bible is not available to the masses is disappointing.  All you can get today is the propaganda written by the early church. They have obscured the truth so much that we will never know what happened.

I think anyone who is familiar with your position would say you most likely think NOTHING happened....is this where this is headed?

No, I am saying we'll never know. It's impossible. It's lost to history.  Gone. Dead to our world.  Eternally out of reach.  Unknowable, unprovable, untestable, unreliable, unverifiable.

Isn't this true about a great many things?

It's not my claim a Jesus figure didn't exist. I propose, though, that the mythology has filled in the many gaps that were created in leiu of actual facts.

As you may be aware, some people take the quotes of Jesus as the gospel, and don't for a minute consider them unreliable.  I am simply presenting the more sober , rational view.

If someone wants to read the "original" bible, should read the hebrew version, not any other translation, since translation from hebrew deteriorates the original written meaning.

There are some geniuses, called Kabalists, who already deciphered the code written in the Bible (or otherwise called Torah). I wish I could have had the time to do that myself, probably I would be rich by now.

Sure, we all have presuppositions. Mine is that we can make informed decisions based on inductive reasoning. You reject this, since you you prefer to think you live in a cartoon universe.

You have yet to produce the names of the people you claim are eyewitnesses, and you have yet to show the original manuscripts.

You have only offered your religious view on the matter.  We get it - you believe Jesus is your personal lord and saviour. Many people believe this. You are a religious person.  We get it. We understand you prefer apologetics over critical thinking.


The issue I am trying to discuss is the real formation of the mythology of Xianity. I am interested in the actual events of how Xianity started as a backwater cult and grew into a massive, bloated religion.  I am interested in the mythical themes that crept into the religion over the centuries leading to a Trinitarian view some 3-400 years after the death of Jesus. And how the Bible was formed through the editing and voting of religious people who possessed nothing more than a presupposition that they knew the "mind of god".

I know you are new to logic, so I will talk slow.

I didn't make the claim that Julius Ceaser existed, others have made that claim and the many artifacts tend to support the assertion, but more importantly, we know leaders of countries exist, and many are mythologized. Moreover, I have little reason to believe he didn't exist.

It is not an extraordinary claim to say "there was a leader of a country".  I only need to accept the claim in so far as it doesn't contradict other basoic laws of nature - like coming back from the dead.

Perhaps you can try to tell us if you see a difference in the claims between a ruler and a so-called god?  And while you are fumbling through that, you can tell us why you may not (for I have no idea how gullible you are) believe the extraordinary claims that Ceasar was a god, or some of the other outlandish myths that infiltrated the history?

I know this is philosophy 101, but it bears repeating for our newbie here.


So, there are two questions directed at you. Can you answer them?