Reddit mentions of Jesus, Interrupted: Revealing the Hidden Contradictions in the Bible (And Why We Don't Know About Them)

You might like the book Jesus, Interrupted by Bart Ehrman. It's full of stuff like this.

I love these discussions too! My friends and I always engage topics like this over beer/trees/etc, we call it "discussionfest".

If you are really interested in the origin of the Bible, I highly suggest Jesus, Interrupted by Bart Ehrman. This man has spent most of his life studying the historical origins of the books, the translations, and who Jesus really was. His credentials are impressive, and he doesn't approach the book from an "atheist" direction but rather from an academic one (I'm actually not even sure if he is an atheist). I cannot recommend it highly enough, as an ex-Catholic it really helped me understand the Bible in its proper context. You will get a lot out of this!

I feel you on the hope for higher meaning. The finality of death is still difficult for me to grapple with, but I expect it is difficult for any intelligent organism. What this has done practically has made me have a renewed passion for life here on Earth, and has made me such a crazy, goddamn hippy socialist because I want every human being to be able to live a meaningful life. Ultimately, any actions we take here will fade into history within a few generations, and even if I am remembered longer than that entropy will eventually have its way. The wonderful thing is this means we get to create our own purpose, and life becomes much more than a temporary place we wait at until the afterlife. There is so much to see and experience, so many people to help and love, that I find my life much more beautiful without religion. And whenever the thought of death and the end of my conscious being creeps its way into my mind, I just think of a quote that gives me some solace:

"I'm not afraid of death. It's the stake one puts up in order to play the game of life."

Jean Giraudoux, Amphitryon

That quote, more than any other, helps me see through that fear and anxiety. Death blows, but only because I am alive!

The modern translation of Josephus is wrong. He did not use the name Jesus and he did not name him Christ. The word used was Christos, which means 'anointed one'—which could have related a number of prominent teachers at that time.

This book is a brilliant read:

http://www.amazon.com/Jesus-Interrupted-Revealing-Hidden-Contradictions/dp/0061173932/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1262108084&sr=8-1

Fortunately, the burden of proof is on you, good luck.

http://www.amazon.com/Jesus-Interrupted-Revealing-Hidden-Contradictions/dp/0061173932

Take a look at this book. If you want to know the actual history behind the book that causes you to believe what you do - I highly recommend it.

None of these are facts. As source, I submit Bart Ehrman's "Jesus, Interrupted" and it's references.

Please provide sources for your so-called "undeniable" facts outside the Bible.

This is mostly true, the exact answer is a little more in depth. Jesus (if he existed, there are many mythicists on /r/atheism) died on or about 31 - 33 AD, this is widely accepted by scholars. The 1st gospel as I remember, is Mark written not before 70 AD, some place it later, up to 40+ years later. No complete manuscripts were found until about slightly later than 300 AD. There is a considerable gap there, so we cannot compare later documents to early ones for accuracy.

All of the other gospels (at least the ones the church decided to keep in the bible) are held to merely be plagiarisms to Mark, or at least the basis of them. Scholars also widely accept that the gospels are not eyewitness accounts. This is pretty much a given since say if you were 20 years old in 30 AD, and "Mark" came to look for an eyewitness in 70 AD, chances are good, you'd be dead.

I can expand on this more, but this is mostly from memory, and not my intention to spread a miss-remembered fact or date. Most of these came from a New Testament Scholar named Bart Ehrman. I'd suggest reading his books. Here is a video of him. None of his views are radical by any stretch, he usually delivers lectures on the consensus of what what actual Biblical Scholars find accurate, believer or non-believer. There are a ton of videos of him on youtube, just search for his name.

EDIT: Here are a couple of his books: Misquoting Jesus & Jesus, Interrupted. He has a lot of books out, and some of his books he has condensed lectures of on youtube.

I would take a note pad and write down any passages that you find interesting. As a skeptic, you'll see things even more bizarre and ridiculous. After reading Jesus Interrupted this summer with a Bible by my side to look up all the passages he is talking about, you start to deconstruct the meanings for the books logically (granted it is only the new testament that is discussed in Jesus Interrupted).

Read Jesus, Interrupted: Revealing the Hidden Contradictions in the Bible (And Why We Don't Know About Them) by Bart Ehrman.