I initially wanted this to be in form of a discussion, but I have decided to post all my points on this thread.

Please read the posts to follow with an open, objective mind.

A heavy load of most atheistic arguments against christianity, is ladened under the rubric of criticizing the christian God, Yahweh. In my opinion, I think any sane, honest person, who has his moral scruples fine tuned, would agree that the christian God is a bit too morally depraved and human-like to be the all-loving creator of the universe.

But in spite of this, and in the midst of the denial and disingenuity, christians cower under an umbrella, which according to them, not only exonerates their God from his evils, but also reinforces their beliefs. This impervious umbrella is Jesus christ. Christians claim that jesus is the son of God and he was sent by God to deliver humanity from sin, and usher in the era of grace, which nullifies all the old testament laws. According to them, Jesus is a bridge that connects them directly to God, a bridge strengthened by the pillars of faith.

But is Jesus christ the messiah that was promised in the old testament?

I would like to begin by asking a very salient question: Why should the creator of the universe in all it's complexity and vastness, have a son?

Anthropomorphization is the lifeblood of religion, especially the pagan religions that preceded Judaism, and it's basically attributing human-like qualities to perceived notions of god.

So if a culture creates a god, they would ascribe features to it that are purely human. Example of these features is reproduction. These cultures in their unabashed ignorance, assume that since they can reproduce, then their god should also be able reproduce, so they ascribe certain qualities to it, like having a wife and then conceiving a son.

Sadly, we also see the above theme in christianity. Why should the creator of the universe have a son? How did this happen? If man was created in God's image, then there had to be sexual intercourse for this to happen. If there was, then where is the mother? If sexual intercourse wasn't required, then did God create Jesus? If he did, then how could he have created himself, since God and Jesus are the same?

You see, when you begin to ask questions like this, you arrive at a pungent hole, reeking with the offensive smell of deceit and ignorance. Deceit in the sense that we have all been forced to buy into a lie. And ignorance in the sense that this story must surely have come from the vacuous minds of ignorant men.

It's quite shocking to know that Jews, the same Jews in the old testament who had a personal relationship with God, don't believe that Jesus christ was the son of god. Why is this so and why do christians think otherwise?

Christians are the followers of christ. They believe that Jesus was the son of god prophesied in the old testament. The jews, although not accepting this, still agree with christians on Yahweh being the one true god.
But why don't they accept the Jesus story? I'll explain below.

Jews take their holy books seriously and they interpret most of the words literary and honestly. They have studied their scriptures and there are few prophecies that they believe are to be fulfilled by the messiah that was promised, and these prophecies haven't been fulfilled. Christians on the other hand, look at this same old testament, and interpret some of these prophecies as having been fulfilled by Jesus, or to be fulfilled in his second coming. So who is actually correct here?

Bear in mind that there are jewish rabbis who claim to speak to God everyday and God assures them that Jesus isn't his son.

The original hebrew word for messiah is Hamoshiach, and this means the anointed one. According to jewish tradition, only kings and priests are anointed. What this means is that according to the prophecies in the old testament, the Hamoshiach promised must have to be either a king or a priest.

According to the old testament and a view all jews hold, is that the requirements for the messiah are as follows.

1. The messiah would build the third temple. Ezekiel 37: 26-28

2. The messiah would gather all Jews back to the Land of Israel (Isaiah 43:5-6)

3. The messiah would usher in an era of world peace, and end all hatred, oppression, suffering and disease. As it says: "Nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall man learn war anymore." (Isaiah 2:4) And he was to do this in his life time.

4. The messiah would spread universal knowledge of the God of Israel, which will unite humanity as one.
As it says: "HaShem will be King over all the world - on that day, HaShem will be One and His Name will be One" (Zechariah 14:9)

5. The messiah must be descended on his father's side from King David (Genesis 49:10 and Isaiah 11:1)

6. The messiah would lead the Jewish people to full Torah observance. The Torah states that all mitzvot remain binding forever, and anyone coming to change the Torah is immediately identified as a false prophet. (Deut. 13:1-4) If a person is hamoshiach, it is self evident.

Based on the stories about Jesus found in the Christian New Testament, he would not have met a single requirement of a hamoshiach starting with his lack of lineage. The Christian Church invented a concept of 'Messiah' that not only does not exist in Jewish teachings, it directly opposes every single tenet of Judaism.

Isaiah 53

This chapter of the scripture is a rubric that most christians use to justify their belief that jesus is the messiah. Christians claim that the coming of Jesus and the way he lived his life, encapsulates the prophecies in Isaiah 53.

But bible scholars and theologians agree that Isaiah 53 wasn't talking about a man, but was a poetic prophesy describing the nation of Israel. Reading the previous chapters- 52 and 51, authenticates this claim.

Anyone who doesn't agree with this, is free to consult any reputable source to confirm my assertion.

I am trudging slowly towards a very interesting revelation, but there are few stations I must stop at before I arrive at my destination. First is the station where I'll parse the authenticity of the story of jesus.

Now, who wrote the first four gospels? When were they written? Why were they canonized? These are questions christians themselves don't bother to ask, because they think the bible is historically factual. But is it?

The earliest of the canonical gospels is the gospel of Mark. And it was written around 70AD. This is 40 years after jesus died. Hmmm. Forty years is quite a long time. The other gospels of mathew, luke and john were written between 70 AD and 120 AD. What does this tell us? Could the writers have been actual followers of Jesus?

Well we can extrapolate from this, that the gospel of Mark was obviously the original text describing the life and death of Jesus, and the other writers of Mathew, luke and John, copied and appended to it.
You can see proof of this by reading the four books of the gospel. Mark doesn't tell us about the birth of Jesus, neither does it tell us much about what happened after he died. That's why it's the smallest of all the books.

But how come the other books give us a description of Jesus' birth, and post death period? Was there a reason? Were their accounts factual? What was the underlying impetus? Let's find out.

Exegesis
What is exegesis and how does it apply here? Exegesis is an ancient literary process of interpreting an old text, by new writing. What this means is that a writer begins to write a text based on his interpretation of previous texts.

The bible is riddled with instances of Exegesis, where a writer writes a text to conform to an old prophesy.

I'll provide proof.

Zechariah 9:9, prophesies about the coming of Zion's king.
It reads "See, your king comes to you, righteous and victorious, lowly and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.

Now in the gospel of mark 11:9, we have Jesus sending his disciples to go get a colt for him to ride on.
It reads: “Go to the village ahead of you, and just as you enter it, you will find a colt tied there, which no one has ever ridden. Untie it and bring it here"

Luke 19: 30-35 also reads similar.

But mathew complicates things and accentuates his exegesis.

Mathew 22: 2-7 reads “Go to the village ahead of you, and at once you
will find a donkey tied there, with her colt by her. Untie
them and bring them to me. If anyone says anything to
you, say that the Lord needs them, and he will send them
right away.”
This took place to fulfill what was spoken through the
prophet: to Daughter Zion, 5 ‘See, your king comes to you,
gentle and riding on a donkey, and on a colt, the foal of a donkey. The disciples went and did as Jesus had instructed
them. They brought the donkey and the colt and placed
their cloaks on them for Jesus to sit on.

Now examining the description of each of the three gospels, there is an obvious disparity. Mathew's description contradicts Luke's and Mark's. Why is this so? Well, this is an obvious proof of exegesis and a sad one at that. Mathew tried so hard to make his story reconcile with the prophesy in Zechariah, that he made it so obvious that his story was fabricated. It's impossible for Jesus to have sat on two animals at once.

Now the big question is, which other account of the story of jesus was fabricated like that of Mathew's?

The birth of Jesus.

The gospel account of the birth of Jesus has dug a big hole of uncertainty and confusion in the landscape of biblical history, as it presents a tide of contradictions and a tepid pointer to exegesis.

In the old testament, the Jewish messiah was prophesied to be born in Bethlehem and from the blood line of David. So christians who believed that the man Jesus who they followed was the actual son of God, had to prove this in their account of his birth. This was in my opinion, the biggest mountain to climb for the gospel writers.

Mark, the earliest of the writers, plays safe and doesn't give any account of Jesus' birth. John also follows suit and starts his story by describing Jesus as the word being made flesh. But Matthew and luke wanted to prove by all means that Jesus was the messiah that was promised, and they paid a price in contradiction and inconsistency of their accounts.

Mathew begins his account by trying to link Jesus to David's lineage. He succeeds in a weird way. But his exegesis is noticed when Luke tries to do his, and contradicts mathew.

Reading mathew chapter 1 and luke 1:23-38, just reveals an obvious contradiction born of desperation.

But does this shameful exegesis end here? Of course not.

The bible already prophesied that the messiah was to be born in Bethlehem. So any writer's goal was to make sure Jesus was born in Bethlehem. Now watch a perfect pantomime of exegesis unfold.

The gospel of mark, tells no story of Jesus' birth. The gospel of John doesn't either.

The gospel of Luke however, tells of how Jesus' parents lived in Nazareth in Galilee. But now the problem for luke
was how to make sure Jesus was born in bethlehem. So what does luke do? He invents a census that forces Jesus' parent to travel to bethlehem. But this doesn't make any sense. First of all, the first census held in rome was in 6AD, during the time of Quirnus, 6 years after Jesus was born. So what census did Joseph travel for?

The gospel of Mathew tells a completely different story. In his version Jesus parents live in Bethlehem. Again, Mary becomes pregnant, and miraculously and gives birth in Bethlehem. Herod the Great hears the Messiah has been born through the Magi and tries to kill him by ordering the death of all male children in the town. Jesus' family escape with him to Egypt. They don't return to their home in Bethlehem after Herod's death because his son is ruling Judea and so settle in Nazareth in Galilee, despite another son of Herod ruling there as well.

Now there are few problems in Mathew's account. First, Herod the great died in 4BC. 4 years before Jesus was said to have been born. So which Herod was he referring to?

Secondly, if you notice, Mathew is doing his best to make sure Jesus' parents stay in Nazareth, because according to him in Mathew. 2:23 - "And he came and dwelt in a city called Nazareth: that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophets, He shall be called a Nazaren." The problem now is, this prophesy is no where to be found in the old or new testament. So, where did Mathew get it from? This is clearly a case of exegesis, but what book was he trying to interpret through his writing? Probably a non canonical book.

Cc Johnnydon22, cloudgoddess, Loj, Hahn, Valentinemary, Ifenes, Sarassin, Platteon, PastorAIO, hennycool, coolusername, donffd RaphieMontella ,Weah96, SirWere, sonofluc1fer, Stephendamsoho, EyeHateGod , FearGodAndLive, Kevoh, Akintom, Hardmirror,GRIMMJOE.

Bros U Get Job So?

ReorxTohGan:
Bros U Get Job So?

irrelevant to the thread... attack his points not him. i'm sure him having a Job or not doesn't mean anything to the problem the thread is meant to question.

Nice thread. But I'm afraid most if the christians will fail to see it. Religion has a strong influence on thought.

ReorxTohGan:
Bros U Get Job So?

ahn ahn... Refute his statements... Dont attack him

The virgin birth

If there is any conspicuous instance of exegesis in the bible, it's the whole notion of the virgin birth.
The writer of mark is my candidate for the most honest writer in the new testament. If I am to believe any of the Jesus account, it's the accounts mark described, but Luke, and Mathew, are the most dishonest and dubious of the lot.

The story of Jesus being born of a virgin, was claimed to have fulfilled the prophesy in the book of Isaiah 7:14, which reads " Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: The
virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and will
call him Immanuel"

The above verse makes sense if you view it in the light of the account of Jesus's birth, as his birth seems to have fulfilled the prophesy. But did it?

In 1947, 7 dead sea scrolls were found in Qurman, which dated back to 125BCE. The great book of Isaiah was found among these scrolls. Normally, scrolls like this were interpreted and translated by the Septuagint, but reading the original texts as was written in the Isaiah scrolls, one notices a mistake in translation by the Septuagint.

The correct Hebrew word that appeared in the original Hebrew scriptures of Isaiah 7:14 was almah in Hebrew and not a virgin(betula in Hebrew). The word almah was mistakenly translated by the Septuagint to the
word virgin, while the true meaning of the word, is a young woman, which can be a virgin but not necessarily.

So, it's highly likely that whosoever wrote Mathew and Luke, must have read the Septuagint's flawed translation of that verse.

But the revelation doesn't end here. It even gets uglier.

Reading Isaiah 7:14 in context, you'd notice that the symbolism of the birth of a young woman was a sign Isaiah prophesied to king Ahaz that was to happen in his life time, and would serve as a warning to him. But how christians skipped all that and just leaped into the terrain of virgin birth and prophesy of the messiah, just amazes me.

Now it gets even uglier.

Most bible scholars believe that the Almah prophesied in Isaiah 7:14, is actually Isaiah's wife.

At the time Isaiah wrote that verse, he had two kids from his wife: Shear-Jashub and Maher-Shalal-Hash-Baz. Both kids with their special names have served as signs for the validity of the upcoming events (near future events) that had been prophesied by Isaiah in chapters 7-8 of the book.

Shear-Jashub: (Implies the return of Israel’s remnant after being exiled)

Isaiah 7:3
Then the Lord said to Isaiah, “Go out, you and your son Shear-Jashub, to meet Ahaz at the end of the aqueduct of the Upper Pool, on the road to the Launderer’s Field.

Here we see that Shear-Jashub was explicitly referred as the son of Isaiah

Maher-Shalal-Hash-Baz (Implies the impending arrival of the army of Aram to loot Assyria and Ephraim)

Isaiah 8:3
Then I made love to the prophetess, and she conceived and gave birth to a son. And the Lord said to me, “Name him Maher-Shalal-Hash-Baz.

Here we see that Isaiah impregnated his own wife in order to give birth to their new son Maher-Shalal-Hash-Baz.

Immanuel (Implies that because God is with us, the device of Judea’s enemies will be thwarted )

Isaiah 7:14
Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: The young woman will conceive and give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel.

Here we can observe that all three kids had special names which served
as a signs for the upcoming events. Immanuel wasn’t an exception and his name served as a sign like all the other kids and the woman that has conceived him was Isaiah’s wife, Just as in the previous cases.

A support to the argument that all Isaiah’s kids have served as signs appear in the following verse:

Isaiah 8:18
Here am I, and the children the Lord has given me. We are signs and symbols in Israel from the Lord Almighty, who dwells on Mount Zion.

Since Shear- Jashub and Maher-Shalal-Hash-Baz were explicitly mentioned as Isaiah's kids, with their special names used as symbols, there is no reason to believe that Immanuel wasn't such.

The book of Acts is also believed to have been written by the person or people who wrote the gospel of luke. If, like we have seen, the writers of the gospel of Luke were dishonest people, and their work riddled with exegesis, then how factual are the accounts in Acts of the apostles?

Berlynn:


The belief that God is dead and religion is irrelevant naturally leads to the following ideas

1) If God is dead, there are no moral absolutes and no universal standard to which all men should conform.

2) If God is dead, there is no purpose or rational order in life.

3) If God is dead, any design seen in the universe is projected by men who are desperate to find meaning in life.

4) If God is dead, man is independent and totally free to create his own values.

5) If God is dead, the "real" world (as opposed to a heaven and hell) is man's only concern.

The idea that "God is dead" is primarily a challenge to God's authority over our lives. The notion that we can safely create our own rules was the lie that the serpent told Eve: "ye shall be as gods" (Genesis 3:5). Peter warns us that "there shall be false teachers among you, who privily shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction" (2 Peter 2:1).

Seriously stop embarrassing urself please

Berlynn:



The belief that God is dead and religion is irrelevant naturally leads to the following ideas

1) If God is dead, there are no moral absolutes and no universal standard to which all men should conform.

2) If God is dead, there is no purpose or rational order in life.

3) If God is dead, any design seen in the universe is projected by men who are desperate to find meaning in life.

4) If God is dead, man is independent and totally free to create his own values.

5) If God is dead, the "real" world (as opposed to a heaven and hell) is man's only concern.

The idea that "God is dead" is primarily a challenge to God's authority over our lives. The notion that we can safely create our own rules was the lie that the serpent told Eve: "ye shall be as gods" (Genesis 3:5). Peter warns us that "there shall be false teachers among you, who privily shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction" (2 Peter 2:1).

Do you conform to God's so called universal rules? Do you kill Non virgins on their wedding day as was instructed in Det 22: 20-21?

Do you burn people alive for fornication as instructed in Lev 21:9?

Do you kill adulterers for their sins as instructed in Lev 20:10?

Do you kill homosexuals as instructed in Lev 20:13?

If you don't follow these laws, which were explicitly universal moral values prescribed by God, then what moral intuition guides your non-subscription to these values?

Take the issue of slavery. The endorsement of slavery was part of God's own objective morality. But humans have deviated from slavery, because we now understand how morally reprehensible it is. If we stuck to God's objective morality, then we should still be practicing slavery. My question is; what moral compass did we use to acknowledge the fact that slavery was wrong? God's objective moral compass or our own subjective moral compass?

The problem with claiming that humans need an objective universal morality is that this isn't even possible, given the fact that there are thousands of religions who claim to have the true God.
The notion of objective morality crumbles because as far as religion is concerned, there is no objective morality, because these so called objective values are subjective to the religion prescribing them and the nature of their God. So Muslims have their own set of universal objective values, Christians have theirs, Hindus also have theirs, and so on.

If there should be any well subscribed objective moral values, it shouldn't come from religion, but from honest, open-ended discussions and scientific research about maximizing the wellbeing of humans and animals, and creating a world that provides primal factors necessary for optimum physical, psychological and mental growth and development of sentient beings.

Berlynn:

Jesus is truly God and truly man. His physical body did die; His heart stopped beating, and “he gave up his spirit” (Matthew 27:50). Just as our physical bodies will someday die, so did His. But as Jesus died physically, He remained alive spiritually. Jesus made good on His promise to the believing thief on the cross He and the thief both went to paradise, not physically, but in spirit (Luke 23:43).

So, Jesus died physically on the cross, as was plain for all to see (John 19:34). But there is also the matter of spiritual death. When Jesus was hanging on the cross, He experienced death on our behalf. Even though He is God, He still had to suffer the agony of a temporary separation from the Father due to the sin He bore. After three hours of supernatural darkness, Jesus cried, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Mark 15:34). So, could it be said that Jesus also “died” spiritually? Again, it was only His human nature that was separated from God, not His divine nature. God did not “die.”

Could you address any of the points I made and square it with what you just posted.

Detailed, Qualitative an Enlightening. Thanks for depositing your time to coin this masterclass!. The hype about Jesus reeks of deceit and tentative twistings. Didn't Jesus said he would return during the lifetime of his apostles? There are some passages in the Bible which have caused confusion and yet the christians would come to defend it in their Own suited manners and the "manners" are all different from one pastor to another! And most times their references are not from the bible. Christians always love to move the goalpost at will.

“And he said unto them, Verily I say unto you, That there be some of them that stand here, which shall not taste of death, till they have seen the kingdom of God come with power.” (Luke 9:27); Note: A similar verse also occurs in Mark 9:1 and Matthew 16:28.

Matt 10:23 "When you are persecuted in one place, flee to another. I tell you the truth, you will not finish going through the cities of Israel before the Son of Man comes."


"Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me. In my Father's house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am."

Highly educating keep it coming for people to see for themselves !!!

Grizzlybear, nice read indeed

If only Christians and Muslims actually read their bibles we wouldn't need to spend much time trying to explain to adults that fairy tales and myths are not real

cool thread

Firstly we must understand that Jesus symbolized an embodiment of truth and yes Jesus is the messiah. The Bible is one of many books that tells us about the "I am" or "We are" the way and path to our God nature. Jesus is a symbol of many thing and representing an individual is one of them.

In John 14:6,it claimed Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father, but through Me.” That is “probably the most exclusive statement ever made by anyone. This was also written in "first person singular" even when we know Jesus was a metaphor. Salvation is in the individual. We are our own salvation and this can only be achieved by being aware and shifting from being ignorant and uncivilized to becoming a better and transformed individual who is tolerant and loves his neighbor as his/herself...because you must have gotten the understanding that your neighbor is only another version of you.

I am not against people saying jesus is the son of god as long as they understand that they are talking about themselves.

hahn:
Grizzlybear, nice read indeed

If only Christians and Muslims actually read their bibles we wouldn't need to spend much time trying to explain to adults that fairy tales and myths are not real

Thanks bro. Only if.

johnydon22:
irrelevant to the thread... attack his points not him. i'm sure him having a Job or not doesn't mean anything to the problem the thread is meant to question.

tot sarcasm Wos Simple To Undastand?..

OP read the book of Enoch for better understanding

raphieMontella:

ahn ahn...
Refute his statements...
Dont attack him

what's The Difference Between Him And His Statements. Or Can U Cruxify A Wicked Person's Deed Without Includinq Him?? ..I Neva 'd Verbally Attack Him Tho'

Continue..abeg, na this food i wan chop this sunday afternoon.

sonmvayina:
Continue..abeg, na this food i wan chop this sunday afternoon.

I am done.