"rogue" <rogue719@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:1121200285.763227.194810@g14g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...

I tried reading the bible but it's such a screwed up mess. The text
contradicts itself, the book is not historically true or accurate and
finally, it's a mess on prophecy. How can such a book represent the
will of a deity?

Your absolutly correct. The Bibles are a confusing mixture of history, myth,
allegory and fiction written by religious leaders to strengthen their hold
on their flocks.

Amazingly, Christians almost never question the authenticity of Jesus and
the Bibles, yet the very foundation of their faith is based on their
authenticity.

No one has the slightest physical evidence to support a historical Jesus; no
artifacts, dwelling, works of carpentry, or self-written manuscripts. No
contemporary Roman records show Pontius Pilate executing a man named Jesus.
Devastating to historians, there occurs not a single contemporary writing
that mentions Jesus. All documents ( the Bibles )about Jesus were written
long after the life of the alleged Jesus from either: unknown authors,
people who had never met an earthly Jesus, or from fraudulent, mythical or
allegorical writings. It is reasonable to assume that these ancient
documents were doctored and altered to enhance the power of the clerics of
the time. Many of these writings come from fraud, interpolations and
hearsay.

The earliest part of New Testament was written more than 70 years after the
claimed death of Jesus Christ and the Old Testaments were just a collection
of various regional stories from older civilizations. There are NO originals
of any of the Old or New testaments. They are all copies of copies of copies
with alterations to suite the copiers.

The documents included in the Bible were selected by the church leaders to
support and enhance their power. The rest have been destroyed by church
leaders.

Hearsay means information derived from other people rather than on a
witness' own knowledge. Courts of law do not allow hearsay as
testimony, and nor does honest modern scholarship.

We live in a world where many people believe in demons, UFOs, ghosts, or
monsters, and an innumerable number of fantasies believed as fact taken from
nothing but belief and hearsay. Humans are known to lie and exaggerate to
benefit themselves.

Valid historian's do not just tell unsubstantiated stories, but cite their
articles with sources that trace to the subject themselves, or to
eyewitnesses and physical artifacts.

The most claimed "authoritative" accounts of a historical Jesus come from
the four canonical Gospels of the Bible. Note that these Gospels did not
come into the Bible as original and authoritative documents from the authors
themselves, but rather from the influence of early church leaders,
especially the most influential of them all: Irenaeus of Lyon who lived in
the middle of the second century. Many heretical gospels were written by
that time, but Irenaeus selected only four of them, out of almost fifty, for
mystical reasons.

The four gospels (Mark, Luke, Matthew and John) then became Church cannon
for the orthodox faith. Most of the other claimed gospel writings were
burned, destroyed, or lost.

Although the gospels of the New Testament-- like those discovered at Nag
Hammadi-- are attributed to Jesus' followers, no one knows who actually
wrote any of them. Not only do we not know who wrote them, consider that
NONE of the Gospels were contemporarily written during the alleged life of
Jesus, nor do the unknown authors make the claim to have met an earthly
Jesus. Add to this that NONE of the ORIGINAL gospel manuscripts exist; we
only have copies of copies of copies etc. ( The printing press was not
invented until 1400 years AFTER the last Bible was claimed to have been
written. )

Why would any REAL GOD permit the destruction of his words and the
distortion of his history???

The consensus of many biblical historians put the dating of the earliest New
Testament Gospel, that of Mark, at sometime after 70 C.E., and the last
Gospel, John after 90 C.E. This would make it some 40 years after the
alleged crucifixion of Jesus that we have ANY Gospel writings that mention
him!

The traditional Church has portrayed the authors as the apostles Mark, Luke,
Matthew, & John, but scholars know from critical textural research that
there is simply no evidence that the gospel authors could have served as the
apostles described in the Gospel stories. Yet even today, we hear priests
and ministers describing these authors as the actual Disciples of Christ.
This is factually false.

Even if the texts supported the notion that the apostles wrote them,
consider that the average life span of humans in the first century came to
around 30, and very few people lived to 70. If the apostles births occurred
at about the same time as the alleged Jesus crucifixion, and wrote their
gospels in their old age, Mark then was at least 70 years old, and John at
over 110. Rather unlikely.

The gospel of Mark describes the first written Bible gospel. And although
Mark appears deceptively after the Matthew gospel, the gospel of Mark was
written at least a generation before Matthew. From its own words, we can
deduce that the author of Mark had neither heard Jesus nor served as his
personal follower. Whoever wrote the gospel, simply accepted the mythology
of Jesus without question and wrote a crude and ungrammatical account of the
popular story at the time. Any careful reading of the three Synoptic Gospels
(Matthew, Mark, Luke) will reveal that Mark served as the common element
between Matthew and Luke and gave the main source for both of them. Of
Mark's 666 verses, some 600 appear in Matthew, some 300 in Luke. According
to Randel Helms, the author of Mark, stands at least at a third removed from
Jesus and more likely at the fourth remove. [Helms]

The author of Matthew had obviously obtained his information from Mark's
gospel and used them for his own needs. He fashioned his narrative to appeal
to Jewish tradition and Scripture. He improved the grammar of Mark's Gospel,
corrected what he felt theologically important, and heightened and
embellished the miracles and magic.

The author of Luke admits himself as an interpreter of earlier material and
not an eyewitness (Luke 1:1-4).

No one knows the author or where or how he got his information or the date
of its authorship. Again we get faced with unreliable methodology and
obscure sources.

John, the last appearing Bible Gospel, presents us with long theological
discourses from Jesus that could not possibly have come as literal words
from a historical Jesus. The Gospel of John disagrees with events described
in Mark, Matthew, and Luke.

Please understand that the stories themselves cannot serve as examples of
eyewitness accounts since they came as products of the minds of the unknown
authors, and not from the characters themselves. The Gospels describe
narrative stories, written almost virtually in the third person. People who
wish to portray themselves as eyewitnesses will write in the first person,
not in the third person. Moreover, many of the passages attributed to Jesus
could only have come from the invention of its authors. For example, many of
the statements of Jesus claim to have come from him while allegedly alone.
If so, who heard him? It becomes even more marked when the evangelists
report about what Jesus thoughts. To whom did Jesus confide his thoughts?
Clearly, the Gospels employ techniques that fictional writers use. In any
case the Gospels can only serve, at best, as hearsay, and at worst, as
fictional, mythological, or falsified stories.

Doubts about the authenticity of other books in the New Testament such as
Hebrews, James John 2 & 3, Peter 2, Jude and Revelation, were raised even in
antiquity by Origen and Eusebius. Martin Luther rejected the Epistle of
James calling it worthless and an "epistle of straw" and questioned Jude,
Hebrews and the Apocalypse in Revelation. ALL New Testament writings came
well after the alleged death of Jesus from unknown authors.

Epistles of Paul: Paul's biblical letters (epistles) serve as the oldest
surviving Christian texts, written probably around 60 C.E. Most scholars
have little reason to doubt that Paul wrote some of them himself. However,
there occurs not a single instance in all of Paul's writings that he ever
meets or sees an earthly Jesus, nor does he give any reference to Jesus'
life on earth. Therefore, all accounts about a Jesus could only have come
from other believers or his imagination. Pure hearsay.

Epistle of James: Although the epistle identifies a James as the letter
writer, but which James? The Epistle of James mentions Jesus only once as an
introduction to his belief. Nowhere does the epistle reference a historical
Jesus and this alone eliminates it from an historical account.

Epistles of John: The epistles of John, the Gospel of John, and Revelation
appear so different in style and content that they could hardly have the
same author. Some suggest that these writings of John come from the work of
a group of scholars in Asia Minor who followed a "John" or they came from
the work of church fathers who aimed to further the interests of the Church.

The epistles of John say nothing about seeing an earthly Jesus. Not only do
we not know who wrote these epistles, they can only serve as hearsay
accounts.

Epistles of Peter: Many scholars question the authorship of Peter of the
epistles. Even within the first epistle, it says in 5:12 that Silvanus wrote
it. Most scholars consider the second epistle as unreliable or an outright
forgery (for some examples, see the introduction to 2 Peter in the full
edition of The New Jerusalem Bible, 1985. In short, no one has any way of
determining whether the epistles of Peter come from fraud, an unknown author
also named Peter (a common name) or from someone trying to further the aims
of the Church.

Of the remaining books and letters in the Bible, there occurs no claims or
eyewitness accounts for a historical Jesus.

As for the existence of original New Testament documents, none exist. No
book of the New Testament survives in the original autograph copy. What we
have, come from copies, and copies of copies, of questionable originals and
copiers. The earliest copies we have were written more than a century later
than the autographs, and these exist on fragments of papyrus. [Pritchard;
Graham] According to Hugh Schonfield, "It would be impossible to find any
manuscript of the New Testament older than the late third century, and we
actually have copies from the fourth and fifth. [Schonfield]

The editing and formation of the Bibles came from members of the early
Christian Church. Since the leaders of the Church possessed the texts and
determined what would appear in the Bible, there occurred plenty of
opportunity and motive to change, modify, or create texts that might bolster
the power of the Church and it's leaders.

Take, for example, [Eusebius who served as an ecclesiastical church
historian and bishop. He had great influence in the early Church and he
openly advocated the use of fraud and deception in furthering the interests
of the Church (Remsberg). The first mention of Jesus came from Eusebius
(none of the earlier church fathers mention Josephus' Jesus). It comes as no
surprise why many scholars think that Eusebius interpolated his writings. In
his Ecclesiastical History, he writes, "We shall introduce into this history
in general only those events which may be useful first to ourselves and
afterwards to posterity." (Vol. 8, chapter 2). In his Praeparatio
Evangelica, he includes a chapter titled, "How it may be Lawful and Fitting
to use Falsehood as a Medicine, and for the Benefit of those who Want to be
Deceived" (book 12, chapter 32).

The early Church had such power over people, that to question the Church
could result in death. Regardless of what the Church claimed, people had to
take it as "truth." St. Ignatius Loyola of the 16th century even wrote: "We
should always be disposed to believe that which appears to us to be white is
really black, if the hierarchy of the church so decides."

The orthodox Church also fought against competing Christian cults. Irenaeus,
who determined the four gospels, wrote his infamous book, "Against the
Heresies." According to Romer, Irenaeus' great book not only became the
yardstick of major heresies and their refutations, the starting-point of
later inquisitions.

" [Romer] The early Church burned many heretics, along with their sacred
texts. If a Jesus did exist, perhaps eyewitness writings were burned along
with them because of their heretical nature. We will never know.

With such intransigence from the Church and the admitting to lying for its
cause, the burning of heretical texts, Bible errors and alterations, how
could any honest scholar take any book from the New Testament as absolute,
much less using extraneous texts that support a Church's intolerant and
biased position, as reliable evidence? Certainly NOT the word of any God!

Pliny the Younger, a Roman official, was born in 62 C.E. His letter about
the Christians only shows that he got his information from Christian
believers themselves. Regardless, his birth date puts him out of the range
of eyewitness accounts.

Suetonius, a Roman historian, born in 69 C.E. who mentions a "Chrestus," a
common name. Apologists assume that "Chrestus" means "Christ." But even if
Seutonius had meant "Christ," it still says nothing about an earthly Jesus.
Just like all the others, Suetonius birth occurred after the purported
Jesus. Again, only hearsay.

Talmud: Amazingly some Christians use brief portions of the Talmud, (a
collection of Jewish civil and religious law, including commentaries on the
Torah), as evidence for Jesus. They claim that Yeshu (a common name in
Jewish literature) in the Talmud refers to Jesus. However, this Jesus,
according to Gerald Massey actually depicts a disciple of Jehoshua
Ben-Perachia at least a century before the alleged Christian Jesus. [Massey]
Regardless of how one interprets this, the Palestinian Talmud was written
between the 3rd and 5th century C.E., and the Babylonian Talmud between the
3rd and 6th century C.E., at least two centuries after the alleged
crucifixion! At best it can only serve as controversial Christian and pagan
legend; it cannot possibly serve as evidence for a historical Jesus.

Because the religious mind relies on belief and faith, the religious person
can inherit a dependence on any information that supports a belief and that
includes fraudulent stories, rumors, unreliable data, and fictions, without
the need to check sources, or to investigate the reliability of the
information.

What appears most revealing of all, comes not from what was later written
about Jesus but what people did not write about him. Consider that not a
single historian, philosopher, scribe or follower who lived before or during
the alleged time of Jesus ever mentions him!

If, indeed, the Gospels portray a historical look at the life of Jesus, then
the one feature that stands out prominently within the stories shows that
people claimed to know Jesus far and wide, not only by a great multitude of
followers but by the great priests, the Roman governor Pilate, and Herod who
claims that he had heard "of the fame of Jesus" (Matt 14:1)". One need only
read Matt: 4:25 where it claims that "there followed him [Jesus] great
multitudes of people from Galilee, and from Decapolis, and from Jersulaem,
and from Judaea, and from beyond Jordon." The gospels mention, countless
times, the great multitude that followed Jesus and crowds of people who
congregated to hear him. So crowded had some of these gatherings grown, that
Luke 12:1 alleges that an "innumberable multitude of people... trode one
upon another." Luke 5:15 says that there grew "a fame abroad of him: and
great multitudes came together to hear..." The persecution of Jesus in
Jerusalem drew so much attention that all the chief priests and scribes,
including the high priest Caiaphas, not only knew about him but helped in
his alleged crucifixion. (see Matt 21:15-23, 26:3, Luke 19:47, 23:13). The
multitude of people thought of Jesus, not only as a teacher and a miracle
healer, but a prophet (see Matt:14:5).

So here we have the gospels portraying Jesus as famous far and wide, a
prophet and healer, with great multitudes of people who knew about him,
including the greatest Jewish high priests and the Roman authorities of the
area, and not one person records his existence during his lifetime? If the
poor, the rich, the rulers, the highest priests, and the scribes knew about
Jesus, who would not have heard of him?

Then we have a particular astronomical event that would have attracted the
attention of anyone interested in the "heavens." According to Luke 23:44-45,
there occurred "about the sixth hour, and there was darkness over all the
earth until the ninth hour, and the sun was darkened, and the veil of the
temple was rent in the midst." Yet not a single mention of such a three hour
ecliptic event got recorded by anyone, including the astronomers and
astrologers, anywhere in the world. Nor does a single contemporary person
write about the earthquake described in Matthew 27:51-54 where the earth
shook, rocks ripped apart (rent), and graves opened.

Matthew 2 describes Herod and all of Jerusalem as troubled by the worship of
the infant Jesus. Herod then had all of the children of Bethlehem slain. If
such extraordinary infanticides of this magnitude had occurred, why didn't
anyone write about it?

Some apologists attempt to dig themselves out of this problem by claiming
that there lived no capable historians during that period, or due to the
lack of education of the people with a writing capacity, or even sillier,
the scarcity of paper gave reason why no one recorded their "savior." But
the area in and surrounding Jerusalem served, in fact, as the center of
education and record keeping for the Jewish people. The Romans, of course,
also kept many records. Moreover, the gospels mention scribes many times,
not only as followers of Jesus but the scribes connected with the high
priests. And as for historians, there lived plenty at the time who had the
capacity and capability to record, not only insignificant gossip, but
significant events, especially from a religious sect which allegedly drew so
much popular attention a famous and infamous Jesus.

Take, for example, the works of Philo Judaeus who's birth occurred in 20
B.C.E. and died 50 C.E. He lived as the greatest Jewish-Hellenistic
philosopher and historian of the time and lived in the area of Jerusalem
during the alleged life of Jesus. He wrote detailed accounts of the Jewish
events that occurred in the surrounding area. Yet not once, in all of his
volumes of writings, do we read a single account of a Jesus "the Christ."
Nor do we find any mention of Jesus in Seneca's (4? B.C.E. - 65 C.E.)
writings, nor from the historian Pliny the Elder (23?B.C.E - 79 C.E.).

If, indeed, such a well known Jesus existed, as the gospels allege, does any
reader here think it reasonable that, at the very least, the fame of Jesus
would not have reached the ears of one of these men?

Amazingly, we have not one Jewish, Greek, or Roman writer, even those who
lived in the Middle East, much less anywhere else on the earth, who ever
mention him during his supposed life time. This appears quite extraordinary,
and you will find few Christian apologists who dare mention this
embarrassing fact.

Considering that most Christians believe that Jesus lived as God on earth,
the Almighty gives an embarrassing example for explaining his existence.
You'd think a Creator might at least make sure there exists some good solid
evidence of his power and existence.

The gross lack of evidentiary evidence was illustrated clearly in an
interview by the renowned Biblical scholar, David Noel Freeman (Freeman, the
General editor of the Anchor Bible Series and many other works). An
interviewer asked him about Biblical interpretation. Freeman replied:

"We have to accept somewhat looser standards. In the legal profession, to
convict the defendant of a crime, you need proof beyond a reasonable doubt.
In civil cases, a preponderance of the evidence is sufficient. When dealing
with the Bible or any ancient source, we have to loosen up a little;
otherwise, we can't really say anything."

-David Noel Freedman (in Bible Review magazine, Dec. 1993, p.34)

The implications appear obvious. If one wishes to believe in a historical
Jesus, he must accept it based on loose standards. Couple this with the fact
that all of the claims come from hearsay, and we have a foundation made of
sand.

When a story uses impossible historical locations, or geographical errors
there is serious evidence of fiction.

For example, in Matt 4:8, the author describes the devil taking Jesus into
an exceedingly high mountain to show him all the kingdoms of the world.
Since there exists no spot on the spheroid earth to view "all the kingdoms,"
we know that the Bible errs here.

John 12:21 says, "The same came therefore to Philip, which was of Bethsaida
of Galilee. . . ." Bethsaida resided in Gaulonitis (Golan region), east of
the Jordan river, not Galilee, which resided west of the river.

John 3:23 says, "John also was baptizing in Aenon near Salim. . . ." Critics
agree that no such place as Aenon exists near Salim.

There occurs not a shred of evidence for a city named Nazareth at the time
of the alleged Jesus. [Leedom; Gauvin] Nazareth does not appear in the Old
Testament, nor does it appear in the volumes of Josephus's writings (even
though he provides a detailed list the cities of Galilee).

Many more errors and unsupported geographical locations appear in the New
Testament. And although one cannot use these as evidence against a
historical Jesus, we can certainly question the reliability of the texts. If
the scriptures make so many factual errors about geology, science, and
contain so many contradictions, falsehoods could occur in any area.

If we have a coupling with historical people and locations, then we should
also have some historical reference of a Jesus to these locations and
people. But just the opposite proves the case. The Bible depicts Herod, the
Ruler of Jewish Palestine under Rome as sending out men to search and kill
the infant Jesus, yet nothing in history supports such a story. Pontius
Pilate supposedly performed as judge in the trial and execution of Jesus,
yet no Roman record mentions such a trial. The gospels portray a multitude
of believers throughout the land spreading tales of a teacher, prophet, and
healer, yet nobody in Jesus' life time or several decades after, ever
records such a human figure. The lack of a historical Jesus in the known
historical record speaks for itself.

Many Christian apologists attempt to extricate themselves from their lack of
evidence by claiming that if we cannot rely on the post chronicle exegesis
of Jesus, then we cannot establish a historical foundation for other figures
such as Socrates, Alexander the Great, Napoleon, etc. However, there sits a
vast difference between historical figures and Jesus. There occurs either
artifacts, writings, or eyewitness accounts for historical people, whereas,
for Jesus we have nothing.

Alexander, for example, left a wake of destroyed and created cities behind.
We have buildings, libraries and cities, such as Alexandria, left in his
name. We have treaties, and even a letter from Alexander to the people of
Chios, engraved in stone, dated at 332 B.C.E. For Socrates, we have the
eyewitness writings of Plato that depicts his philosophy and life. Napoleon
left behind artifacts, eyewitness accounts and letters.

Interestingly, almost all important historical people have descriptions of
what they looked like. Plato described what Socrates looked like, we have
busts of Greek and Roman aristocrats, artwork of Napoleon, etc. We have
descriptions of facial qualities, height, weight, hair length & color, age
and even portraits of most important historical figures. But for Jesus, we
have nothing. Nowhere in the Bible do we have a description of the human
shape of Jesus.

Not until hundreds of years after the alleged Jesus did pictures emerge as
to what he looked like from cult Christians, and these widely differed from
a blond clean shaven, curly haired Apollonian youth (found in the Roman
catacombs) to a long-bearded Italian as depicted to this day. This mimics
the pattern of Greek mythological figures as their believers constructed
various images of what their gods looked like according to their own
cultural image.

Historial people leave us with contemporary evidence, but for Jesus we have
nothing.

If a person accepts hearsay and accounts from believers as historical
evidence for Jesus, then shouldn't they act consistently to other accounts
based solely on hearsay and belief?

To take one example, examine the evidence for the Hercules of Greek
mythology and you will find it parallels the "historicity" of Jesus to such
an amazing degree that for Christian apologists to deny Hercules as a
historical person belies and contradicts the very same methodology used for
a historical Jesus.

Note that Herculean myth resembles Jesus in many areas. Hercules was born as
a human from the union of God (Zeus) and the mortal and chaste Alcmene, his
mother. Similar to Herod who wanted to kill Jesus, Hera wanted to kill
Hercules. Like Jesus, Hercules traveled the earth as a mortal helping
mankind and performed miraculous deeds. Like Jesus who died and rose to
heaven, Hercules died, rose to Mt. Olympus and became a god. Hercules gives
example of perhaps the most popular hero in Ancient Greece and Rome. They
believed that he actually lived, told stories about him, worshiped him, and
dedicated temples to him.

Likewise the "evidence" of Hercules closely parallels that of Jesus. We have
historical people like Hesiod and Plato who mentions Hercules. Similar to
the way the gospels tell a narrative story of Jesus, so do we have the epic
stories of Homer who depict the life of Hercules. Aesop tells stories and
quotes the words of Hercules. Just as we have mention of Jesus in Joesphus'
Antiquities, so also does Joesphus mention Hercules in Antiquities (see:
1.15; 8.5.3; 10.11.1). Just as Tacitus mentions a Christus, so does he also
mention Hercules many times in his Annals. And most importantly, just as we
have no artifacts, writings or eyewitnesses about Hercules, we also have
nothing about Jesus. All information about Hercules and Jesus comes from
stories, beliefs, and hearsay. Should we then believe in a historical
Hercules, simply because ancient historians mention him and that we have
stories and beliefs about him?

Some critics doubt that a historicized Jesus could develop from myth because
they think there never occurred any precedence for it. We have many examples
of myth from history but what about the other way around? This doubt fails
in the light of the most obvious example-- the Greek mythologies where Greek
and Roman writers including Diodorus, Cicero, Livy, etc., assumed that there
must have existed a historical root for figures such as Hercules, Theseus,
Odysseus, Minos, Dionysus, etc. These writers put their mythological heroes
into an invented historical time chart. Herodotus, for example, tried to
determine when Hercules lived. As Robert M. Price revealed, "The whole
approach earned the name of Euhemerism, from Euhemerus who originated it."
[Price, p. 250] Even today, we see many examples of seedling historicized
mythologies: UFO adherents who's beliefs began as a dream of alien bodily
invasion, and then expressed as actually having occurred (some of which have
formed religious cults); beliefs of urban legends which started as pure
fiction or hoaxes; propaganda spread by politicians which stem from fiction
but believed by their constituents.

People consider Hercules and other Greek gods as myth because people no
longer believe in the Greek and Roman stories. When a civilization dies, so
go their gods. Christianity and its church authorities, on the other hand,
still hold a powerful influence on governments, institutions, and colleges.
Anyone doing research on Jesus, even skeptics, had better allude to his
existence or else risk future funding and damage to their reputations or
fear embarrassment against their Christian friends. Christianity depends on
establishing a historical Jesus and it will defend, at all costs, even the
most unreliable sources. The faithful want to believe in Jesus, and belief
alone can create intellectual barriers that leak even into atheist and
secular thought. We have so many Christian professors, theologians and
historical "experts" around the world that tell us we should accept a
historical Jesus that if repeated often enough, it tends to convince even
the most ardent skeptic. The establishment of history should never reside
with the "experts" words alone or simply because a scholar has a reputation
as a historian. If a scholar makes a historical claim, his assertion should
depend primarily with the evidence itself and not just because he says so.
Facts do not require belief. And whereas beliefs can live comfortably
without evidence at all, facts depend on evidence.

===================================================================

THEN WHY THE MYTH OF JESUS?

Some people actually believe that just because so much voice and ink has
spread the word of a character named Jesus throughout history, that this
must mean that he actually lived. This argument simply does not hold. The
number of people who believe or write about something or the professional
degrees they hold say nothing at all about fact. Facts derive out of
evidence, not from hearsay, not from hubris scholars, and certainly not from
faithful believers. Regardless of the position or admiration held by a
scholar, believer, or priest, if he or she cannot support their hypothesis
with good evidence, then it can only remain a hypothesis.

While the possibility exists that an actual Jesus lived, the possibility
also occurs that a mythology could have arrived totally out of earlier
mythologies. Although we have no evidence for a historical Jesus, we
certainly have many accounts for the mythologies of the Middle East and
Egypt during the first century and before that appear similar to the Christ
saviour story.

If you know your ancient history, remember that just before and during the
first century, the Jews had prophesied about an upcoming Messiah based on
Jewish scripture. Their beliefs influenced many of their followers. We know
that powerful beliefs can create self-fulfilling prophesies, and surely this
proved just as true in ancient times. It s