Reddit mentions of The Case for Christ: A Journalist's Personal Investigation of the Evidence for Jesus (Case for ... Series)

I have investigated it and fortified my understanding of it through historical facts and evidence.

> if not why do I have to do it

Oh, this is all in the context of you coming here as an atheist seeking dialog and open to the concept of God. If you want to explore if the Christian God is real, everything hinges on this one event. If Jesus didn't rise from the dead, then Christianity is false and our concept of God is wrong at best.

A book to consider if you're actually wanting to investigate our claims and see what data we have or don't have is Case for Christ. There are others, but this is one of the more approachable books out there.

Just wanting to give you some ideas if you're actually serious about investigating this. If Christ is real, I wouldn't want you to miss him - that's my purpose here. Simply to encourage you to investigate this further.

Here's a couple of good articles that address two of the most commonly cited examples:

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• What similarities are there between the Gilgamesh flood account and the biblical flood account?
  
  
• Did Moses copy the Law from the Code of Hammurabi?
  
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  It all depends on your worldview. This guy says he is a Christian with a neutral perspective, which is impossible if you're a Christian as he claims to be. There are good, reasonable, logical answers to many questions about Christianity in The Case For Christ.

https://www.reasonablefaith.org

https://www.reasonablefaith.org/podcasts/defenders-podcast-series-1

https://www.amazon.com/Guard-Students-Thinkers-Guide-Christian-ebook/dp/B00U894IGA/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1519486559&sr=8-3&keywords=on+guard+william+lane+craig

https://www.amazon.com/Case-Creator-Student-Journalist-Investigates-ebook/dp/B000SERW7M/ref=la_B001H6KH8G_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1519528650&sr=1-3

https://www.amazon.com/Case-Christ-Journalists-Personal-Investigation-ebook/dp/B01863JLK2/ref=la_B001H6KH8G_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1519528650&sr=1-1

https://www.amazon.com/Case-Faith-Journalist-Investigates-Christianity-ebook/dp/B000FC2KEW/ref=la_B001H6KH8G_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1519528650&sr=1-2

https://www.amazon.com/Mere-Christianity-Lewis-Signature-Classics-ebook/dp/B002BD2UR0/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1519528882&sr=8-1&keywords=mere+christianity

I'd like to recommend two books which changed my perspective on Atheism, and towards faith. The first was [this book] (https://www.amazon.com/dp/B004FEECHO/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1) followed by [this book] (https://www.amazon.com/Case-Christ-Journalists-Personal-Investigation-ebook/dp/B01863JLK2/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1503870167&sr=1-1&keywords=lee+strobel+the+case+for+christ)

God Bless, faithful Pede!

-/u/sesquipedalienator, parent

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You should look at these :

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Cold-Case-Christianity-Homicide-Detective-Investigates-ebook/dp/B00A71Y7I8/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1542809757&sr=8-1&keywords=cold+case+christianity

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Case-Christ-Journalists-Personal-Investigation-ebook/dp/B01863JLK2/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1542809781&sr=1-1&keywords=a+case+for+christ

Well technically those records from the mid 100s are saying that christians exist, and they did. The epistles of Paul were written in the 50s, the gospel of Mark written in the 70s, Matthew and Luke written in the 80s or 90s, and John, the revelation of another John, the revelation of Peter, and the ascension of Isaiah and many other Christian stories written in the 100s to the 300s before the ecumenical councils were started in 325 when they decided to narrow down Jesus eventually settling on the trinity by the fourth ecumenical council pushing out Gnosticism like the gospel of Thomas, Marcion, and Origen as well as Aryanism, Nestorianism and other "heresies" leading to the church of the East, Coptics and other early schisms. After the next four councils they came to the idea about iconoclasm where the Eastern Orthodoxy was against the use of iconography and the Catholics stuck with icons such as the crucifix, statues of Mary, and other icons. This was all by the time of the 600s.

Soon after this time the orthodox christians, Coptics, Islam and other sects went their own ways. In Islam Jesus is the chosen human messiah but not the son of God nor was he crucified before his ascension. In some Eastern religions Jesus is sometimes seen as another transcendent beings like the Buddha and Buddha is sometimes seen as a reincarnation of Vishnu in some forms of Hinduism.

Zoroastrianism heavily influenced monotheism and the traits of the supreme god found in most abrahamic religions. It added the concept of heaven and hell. It added armageddon. Many forms of Christianity didn't start out believing in an afterlife but the Catholic concept of heaven, hell, and purgatory was under question by Martin Luther especially the concepts of the church selling something that allows them to skip purgatory and changing the message of the bible from the originally intended meaning. As a result most protestant religions don't have a complicated hierarchy with bishops, archbishops, popes, and such but they'll have a pastor and perhaps deacons and that's about it. The eastern orthodoxy has a few of their ecumenical decisions but the Catholics kept it going up until they went from 7 to 21 with 15 or 16 being related to the protestants being excommunicated and doomed to hell. In the first Vatican council (ecumenical council decision #20) the church rejects rationalism, materialism, and atheism and anything that could cause problems with the church doctrines. More recently (since the 1960s) they have gradually adjusted to science and with the removal of hell and the acceptance of evolution and the ongoing pedophilia the church is falling apart and might again break into multiple denominations.

The protestants went on another path and in the 1900s the rise of fundamental literalism led to a resurgence of young earth creationism and flat earthers while just a few decades earlier the seventh day Adventists, Mormons, Jehovah witnesses and Baha'i came out of the various religions holding fast to creationism and the existence of Jesus.

While these beliefs account for the majority of held religious beliefs (Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Baha'i, Zoroastrianism) only the abrahamic religions of Christianity, Islam, and Baha'i rely on Jesus being historical. Scholars who hold these beliefs will claim they have evidence that Jesus matches their religious idea such as an empty tomb pointing to a resurrection. The scholars who try to establish historicity on either side will fall back to some random Jewish rabbi, perhaps Jesus ben Annanias or Yeshua ben Yosef who was a preacher mulch life the more established John the Baptist and like John was killed and remained dead while his followers shared their memory of him by word of mouth so that he gradually gets more and more absurd and magical by the time the gospels were written. Others will point out that Jesus was a spiritual being probably hundreds of years before the first century when Paul, Peter, Timothy, and others spoke of their visions (related to gnostic Christianity) and it was another couple decades before a Greek speaker unfamiliar with Judaism and the geography of the region wrote the gospel of Mark. Other stories were also in circulation in the following decades such as the Q document so the authors of Matthew and Luke took the various gospels at the time like Mark, Q, and possibly a couple others and combined them with the contradictory birth narratives I pointed out previously. The kept the same crucifixion but added a resurrection which was later added to mark and gave Judas different reasons for betraying Jesus. Then in the next five decades wildly different concepts of Jesus arose such as an attempt to state he was just an ordinary person that was possessed by the son of God. The gospel of John, using gospels like the gospel of Thomas and a sayings gospel was written so that he became more of a superman character. He left off the birth narrative starting with the popular baptism cult of John the Baptist and this time he wasn't turned in by Judas at all but instead told Judas and his army that he is the one they seek. After this there were various acts of the apostles and revelations about Armageddon and various apocrypha that the early church leaders decided to leave out so that they could say Jesus was born to a virgin, died by crucifixion, and had a bodily resurrection from the dead. They left behind just enough contradictions that they decided upon the trinity so that he could be an eternal being equal to the father and spirit and after the death of the son the holy spirit is released to the apostles to spread to the early church.

Basically by the 300s there was a dominant sect holding to a divine human Jesus and that was the sect that set up the early church considering everything else to be a heresy including Islam when it rose up out of Zoroastrianism and Nestorian Christianity. Throughout the middle ages they produced a lot of hoaxes like cups, foreskins, pieces of petrified wood, and a shroud. As time went on it was just assumed that Jesus was a historical figure and it was the consensus about 100 years ago. Since then the consensus has come under scrutiny so that Bart Ehrman and Richard Carrier are at the head of each side of the debate and neither of them hold fast to the gospels being reliable depictions of Jesus nor are the documents that came 100 years later saying that christians exist. There are many people holding many different religions. It doesn't automatically make their beliefs true. Josephus was tampered with by Eusebius and the rest don't really make any claims about a Jesus being real but only relaying what the christians had said about their beliefs such as a messiah who was crucified by Pontius Pilate 100 years ago. By this time everyone who could corroborate his existence had died and while he would have been still alive Philo of Alexandria wouldn't be wondering where he was and Justin Martyr wouldn't be saying that he predated the demigods that were being worshipped by at least 1500 years before Jesus was supposed to have lived.

Here are some books from both sides of the debate:

Richard Carrier: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00QSO2S5C/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1
(Jesus was probably a spiritual mythical being first and a man later)

Bart Erhman: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0053K28TS/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1
(Jesus was probably an ordinary man but we can figure out more about the historical Jesus)

Robert Price: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00J0OPUZM/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1
(Debunking the religious apologetics put forth by Lee Strobel)

Lee Strobel: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01863JLK2/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1
(Defending the divine human Jesus of Christianity)

I'll let you decide.

1 & 2) I'm saying that morality, etc, comes from God, without him you can't have it. You say "ah, but i do have it". Right, because you aren't without God. You are actually living in God's universe which is why it makes sense that you are a moral person, as this universe was created by a moral, first-cause, person. So the question for you is according to your worldview how do you account for an objective morality, for personhood, etc. It's not enough to simply assert that you believe in them. I agree that you do, I just think you don't believe in the foundation for them.

3) Your understanding of Christianity is pretty ad hoc. God is referred to as the one true God, the only God, and the living God, implying the other "gods" are false, nonexistent, or "dead" by comparison. You shall have no other gods before me is extremely relevant as the recipients of the commandment then go on to worship other gods again and again. I think we both agree that worshiping something doesn't make it real.

Ba'al makes no appearances. He is worshipped, he has followers, he has prophets, but he is never portrayed as being a being. Obviously Ba'al worshippers would believe him to be, but that's not the position of the bible. The story of Elisha on mt carmel is relevant for Yahweh vs Ba'al.

Dagon is a fish god and the god of philistines, sea people, but also of Ninevahites. We see dagon's temple destroyed by samson, we see dagon's statue toppled by God in 1 Samuel 5, and we see a metaphoric defeat of dagon when Jonah, swallowed by a great fish (dagon?) is then spit out on land and ninevah repents and follows Yahweh. The great fish was of course just an animal used by God and not another deity.

I don't understand your reference to the Moabites. Ahab is a wicked king, but nonetheless Elisha says that God will give them victory over the moabites...then they go and slaughter a bunch of moabites. That's hardly an example of yahweh losing.

I'll admit the Jacob wrestling thing is weird. He loses the wrestling match, but somehow also has the power to strike Jacob's hip and make him lame? Also God doesn't have a body so how's a wrestling match work? Regardless Jacob is a follower and worshipper of God so he doesn't seem to have lost respect for Yahweh in their tussle?

Chariots of iron: Unstoppable! I think it's clear that Judah is the one who is stopped by the chariots and not God. Of course the question is if God is with him to conquer the one spot, then why not the other? I don't know. It's a side note and not a main story line. There are tens if not hundreds of examples of God giving his people military victory in a large variety of ways, so it doesn't seem like the point of the text was to indicate God having a specific weakness like cryptonite.

The Bible clearly teaches that God knows and sees all. You are smart enough to know that asking questions does not indicate you don't know something...or are you?

As far as evidence for the resurrection you can read Lee Strobel's The case for christ

Also Ravi giving a more eloquent treatment than I can

Just FYI the apostle Paul is with people when he sees his vision, immediately goes to stay with other Christians (who he was on his way to persecute), and then later meets up and argues theology with Jesus's apostles. At no point is he alone or murdering people who disagree with him or enforcing conversion by sword point or marrying a dozen wives, or burning cities. Very much different than Mohammed.

TSS

> Paul (1 person) claims 500 people saw the resurrected Christ. That's completely different from 500 testimonies from eyewitnesses.

Granted. But Paul also pointed out to his Corinthian readers that "most of whom are still living." What Paul was saying is, "If you don't believe me, you can ask them yourselves," indicating that these people were known in the church and able to verify his statements.

It's important to remember that historical analysis is much like a courtroom. When one "witness" says something his character and honesty are taken into account. Paul's is impeccable. Also a witness who testifies that there are plenty of other witnesses that can verify his claims, is someone who holds great sway with the court.

I know this argument is not unimpeachable, (what is?) however, it is a solid opinion.

> 10 out of 11 were killed testifying to this. Source?

There are dozens. Here's a few:
national geographic
christianity.com
credohouse.org
The Case for Christ

> The general scholarly view is that... the Testimonium Flavianum is most likely not authentic in its entirety.

Yes, you're right there is debate regarding possible Christian interpolation. But the claims of interpolation are based on the use of textual criticism - or content analysis. There has never been any hard evidence to prove interpolation actually occurred. Also remember we have a second source that concurs with the resurrection claim. An Arabic version (10th Century) of the "Testimonium" (translated into English) is in basic agreement with the existing Josephus account.

Again, this does not stand as irrefutable, but a cogent argument nonetheless.

-Peace.