Choosing a faith

The religious are as dishonest to themselves as they are to us.

I've been trying to give GDR the benefit of the doubt here but it's getting harder and harder.

He pulls the same shit in every thread he has been involved in. He gets all pissy when he is called out on it. He won't even respond to me because I have called out his crap since he first started posting.

I have read many books on both sides of the argument about resurrection and I have come to the conclusion that without the resurrection Jesus would have been a failed messiah like about a dozen others.I know that's not enough for you guys but so be it. I'm not sure, possibly Buddhism, but you are probably right with the spiritual bit.

Sorry 'bout that. I took it as a serious reply written in a humourous , (and cleverly humourous at that), so I replied in a serious way.

I don't see that I ever saw it as a need. I lived just fine for the first half of my life and didn't feel a need for it. I decided in my 30's to consider it and I found that it mead sense to me after reading Mere Christianity. A number of years later I decided to go more deeply into it so I started studying books on theology and really basic science to better understand what IO believed, or what I didn't believe.All of that did result in many changes to what I believed but I remain a Christian. I think the rest of what I wrote was germane and you only copied hat was kind of a throw away remark.

There is the New Testament and the early church fatyhers.

Well, there are a number of things in the Bible that can be read into it in a fundamental way. I maintain the is Jewish hyperbole as I said before, but you insist on reading it as Faith would. I don't.

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I have read many books on both sides of the argument about resurrection and I have come to the conclusion that without the resurrection Jesus would have been a failed messiah like about a dozen others.
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The fact that you really like the idea of the Resurrection is not exactly convincing to anyone. And that is all your opinion can tell us. I mean you kept on claiming that Matthean Priority removed the “need” for Q long after it became obvious to you that it wasn’t true.
And really if your “research” meant anything to you you would have known it from the start. Now be honest and admit that your “research” is meaningless and your opinions are based entirely on your personal likes and dislikes,In reality Jesus was hardly a successful Messiah. And apparently Rabbi Scheerson is still believed by some to be the Messiah although he died in 1994. Come to that, why would it need a real resurrection rather than just the belief in one? The evidence is hardly good.

A thing cannot be used as evidence for itself. None of the early church fathers were there or even alive when it happened. Well Paul of Tarsus but he does not even talk about an earthly JC. He speaks of a heavenly JC.

The gospels provide only very weak evidence of an empty tomb, and no evidence at all of a resurrection.Yes, there is evidence that members of the early church believed the resurrection. There is also evidence that many Republicans believe that Trump won the 2022 presidential election. Beliefs about are not evidence.

It DOES do away with the need for "Q". Once again here is the wiki site for the Two Gospel or Griesbach hypothesis.
Here is a quote from it.

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The two-gospel hypothesis contrasts with the two-source hypothesis, the most popular and accepted scholarly hypothesis. Supporters say that it does not require lost sources like the Q source and was supported by the early Church. Proponents of the two-gospel hypothesis generally also support the traditional claims of authorship as accurate to disciples and their direct associates, which implies the gospels were written comparatively soon after Jesus's death, rather than the later dates of authorship supported by other schools of thought.

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Many, and likely most at the time would have considered Him, a failed messiah. He hadn't mounted an army, let alone driven the Romans out of Israel. This is what, as was popularly believed, a messiah would do.Jesus had a different view of the Hebrew Scriptures and acted on it. In the Gospels however we can see that when Jesus was crucified the disciples headed for the hills not wanting top suffer the same fate. The resurrection changed all that.

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It DOES do away with the need for "Q"

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It doesn’t. You have provided absolutely no reason to think that it does.

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Once again here is the wiki site for the Two Gospel or Griesbach hypothesis.

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Here is a quote from it.

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The two-gospel hypothesis contrasts with the two-source hypothesis, the most popular and accepted scholarly hypothesis. Supporters say that it does not require lost sources like the Q source and was supported by the early Church. Proponents of the two-gospel hypothesis generally also support the traditional claims of authorship as accurate to disciples and their direct associates, which implies the gospels were written comparatively soon after Jesus's death, rather than the later dates of authorship supported by other schools of thought.

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Even here what they say is that the Griesbach hypothesis does away with the need for Q, not Matthean priority. And the part of the Griesbach hypothesis that does do it is the idea that Luke used Matthew, not the idea that Matthew was written before Luke.Although even that does not actually do it because the “need” for Q is really the arguments for Q. Which do not go away if you simply assume Matthean priority - and the site says that they are not so easily answered. These responses are not new so you have no excuse for not knowing about them. So I guess I should thank you for proving my point. Here you are repeating an obviously false claim, with no idea of how it could be true, repeatedly citing a web page that provides no support at all. Your dedication to your invention clearly overrides any interest in the truth you might have, or anything found in your “research”.

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Many, and likely most at the time would have considered Him, a failed messiah. He hadn't mounted an army, let alone driven the Romans out of Israel. This is what, as was popularly believed, a messiah would do.
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Nor had he achieved the throne, nor had any of the end-time prophecies associated with the Messiah come about.

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Jesus had a different view of the Hebrew Scriptures and acted on it. In the Gospels however we can see that when Jesus was crucified the disciples headed for the hills not wanting top suffer the same fate.

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No, we don’t see that at all. In fact we see them staying in Jerusalem until after the Resurrection. Mark says nothing (except in the added verses which are still placed after the Resurrection and show only two leaving Jerusalem). Matthew even says that they leave Jerusalem specifically to meet the resurrected Jesus. In Luke only the two on the Road to Emmaus leave, and even they know about the Empty Tomb and the angel’s message that Jesus lived (24:22-24). John says that the Jerusalem appearances (20) came before the Disciples left for Galilee (21).So what you “see” in the Gospels is denied by three and not mentioned by the fourth (or denied again if you count verses added to Mark).I think this shows again that your claims of “research” are meaningless. You cling to ideas you like regardless of what your supposed sources say. The truth - even the truth of what the Gospels say - counts for nothing against that.

According to his own words he IS a failed messiah, the second coming didn't happen when he claimed it would and we've waited 2,000 years since. From a human psychology point of view it's interesting to note that believers generally put the end times within their own lifetimes. Phat and Faith both beg for it. According to Pew Research 58% of evangelical Christians (and 41% of all Americans) say it'll be before 2050. It's another one of those self-deceptions believers have.But getting back to the resurrection, I agree that it adds something to the story so that with it it's got a better chance of recruiting the superstitious and gullible of the age. Which is why it was added to the story of course. If your whole belief hangs on that one obvious fiction, it's rather shaky.

It is interesting - apart from not knowing where Emmaus was - that the disciples knew the women saw angels and an empty tomb, but not Mattew's claim the women actually met and embraced Jesus while running from the tomb - an unimportant detail they did not bother to tell them? One of the many contradictions in the accounts of the crucial event for Christians.