TY Baker!!! Sorry. About to get preachy…
>>7870921 (lb)
Before I even start, I will preface this post with a statement:
I am a believer
By the end of this post, I hope to demonstrate why I am.
Problems exist with your sources that many dispute, and will continue to do so, until the end of time, and he comes down from the heavens with a sword of truth protruding from His mouth.
Josephus' first reference in your post is dubious, at best, and mostly not even quoted by many apologists that are in the know, and even your post suggests it's not the strongest that could be mustered. Josephus' second refers to a person and title, and would be the only secular source considered reliable if there weren't those that believe that more than just one of Josephus' writings weren't edited for narrative control over historical events. Let's also not forget that Josephus was born after Christ was slain. Anything Josephus says about any of this would be hearsay upon hearsay, by this point. So, to call someone a skeptic as it pertains to Josephus' writings about Jesus isn't doing them a disservice; it's acknowledging that they can read a date on a piece of paper, and come to the logical conclusion that Josephus was NOT a first-hand witness to the life of Christ. So, Josephus goes the way of a "journalist" talking about historical events, and occasionally dipping in to the "op-ed" before it had a label.
For Tacitus, the issue is he wasn't even born until two decades after Christ was put on the cross. So he's writing an account of a person's acolytes that "caused trouble" for all of Rome; he's not shy about what he thinks about them in the LEAST. For a comparison, Q has demonstrated that you can get an entire populace (and I'm using this term VERY loosely) "following" an unverified (to outsiders, that is) source down a path of discovery of "truths that are hidden" in plain sight. Imagine how rooted into the public psyche a story like Jesus' would be in 2 DECADES. To call someone a "skeptic" that hasn't bought into the historicity of something they weren't even alive to witness for themselves is NOT an insult. Science itself sets a MUCH HIGHER standard for veracity, and so should any serious researcher in matters of historical verisimilitude.
Question:
Is this starting to sound like your hard "Q" skeptics, yet?
The rest of the sources mentioned in your post have the same issue. All born way after; none of them witnessed the life of Christ Himself, and only talk about the (again, using the term LOOSELY) "cult" of His followers.
OK. So, in a single post, you claim an authoritative hold over the narrative of history that proves Christ's existence. Problem is, you didn't state your case well at all. Cults start and end all the time. The case of Christianity is a doozie because it's lasted as long as it has. With events like the "Inquisition", denying the "message" of the Catholic Church cost you your life, so that did wonders in converting people, too. Thankfully, Martin Luther came along, and put a "Fuck the pope" slant on it, and we finally got a digestible version of the Word. Are you following? Within just a couple of hundred years, the enemy already had a stranglehold on God's message for His people. By the time the Council of Nicea came along, it was already subverted and controlled. It's how we got the Holy Roman Empire, and eventually, the mess we have inherited today.
Another big huge red flag for the unconverted? The 4 Gospels themselves have been proven to be copies of one another. What's the source? That's where things get interesting, because the source Gospel is labeled Q:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Q_source
So, go have a read about that, and then let's continue to whittle down a bit, here. When reading the 4 Gospels, we get many conflicting timelines. For an educated take on history and Jesus' timeline, take a look here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kVuNA2rfjuQ
For a cynical, yet fairly pointed secular viewpoint, look here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BvzGA_xFlC8
>>7870921 (LB)
Now, the problem here is this. The authoritative sources claiming the details of the life of Jesus, the Gospels, along with a single excerpt from Josephus (every Christian's favorite historian whose other works they've never read) is it. People that are extremely familiar with the history around that time have demonstrated a significant issue with the placement of the life of a person named Jesus during this time. So what do Christian leaders do with this? How is it that so many avoid questions re: the actual start of the Church? Why were there so many divisions and sects to early on in the beginnings of the Church (the "Body" of Christ, as it were)?
Simple. Jesus' message was the truth. Whether you want to ascribe to OT teachings of the law, or the NT teachings of Christ, Christ's ministry was a marriage of the "pious and seeking" to the ineffective legalism of the controlled structure of the Synagogues of the time. The reason He caused such a stir was because he put the Pharisees' doctrine on its head with Truth to power.
Listen carefully to this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IKLVIm7Q0IQ
The long/short is "Donald Trump has never asked for forgiveness". Watch the vid, then read this:
John 8:11
"She said, “No one, Lord.” And Jesus said to her, “Neither do I condemn you; go and sin no more.”"
Look at the people PDJT surrounds himself with in regards to the spiritual. Paula White? Jentezen Franklin? These people quote a verse, and speak for an hour about how you can live guilt-free, and prosper. Do they do alter calls? I mean real alter calls. I'm talking about the type of church that sees men prostrating themselves in front of a congregation for having sex with their neighbor or drinking too much.
Nope. Did Jesus do that? Nope.
Go back and read the texts in red. If you were to loose the shackles of iniquity in your life, and truly aim to "just to better", where would you be? Would you be bound to your past, or emboldened into the future to be the best you? If you stub your toe on the cabinet, do you pray to the cabinet to move next time? No! You learn from the experience, and watch your step!!
That was the message that put Christ on the cross. It was a DIRECT relationship with God that sent Jesus to be the example we all need in order to find our paths to Him. If I were the enemy, and I could not use GUILT to trap would-be believers into lives of servitude to corrupt institutions, I'd simply attack the source (Jesus) with skewed history, and distorted timelines.
And that's why I believe, still, in God. That's why I believe in Jesus. And that's why I still believe in the promise of His blessings.