TL;DR it's by textual analysis and one of the best treatments of your particular inquiry is from Bart Erhman's Forged: Writing in the Name of God--Why the Bible's Authors Are Not Who We Think They Are.
You should be able to attain a copy through inter-library loan. If not, I've got a digital copy that I may consider sharing with you.
Here’s a good discussion: Forged: Writing in the Name of God--Why the Bible's Authors Are Not Who We Think They Are https://www.amazon.com/dp/B004IWR3JW/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_tai_iAP2FbG2JTHG7?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1
Here’s another good discussion about credibility of Scriptures: Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000SEGJF8/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_tai_oGP2Fb1TJ0V3N?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1
Well on the authorship of John, it isnt claimed to be by the Apostle John so whether or not if that is the case that shouldn't be an issue. Fr John Behr actually argues it was not written by the Apostle but rather a different John, for instance Ephesus has two tombs for John, and makes his case here along with other reasons regarding how early Christians talk about the Apostle, the beloved disciple, and the primary author the text is attributed to.
https://www.amazon.com/John-Theologian-his-Paschal-Gospel-ebook/dp/B07PBCH1HR
On the topic of the Old Testament, why do you think that is an issue? I dont think it gets in the way of reading the texts like the early Church and in a lot of ways helps us to do so.
I've begun wondering how the eternal conscious torment version of hell is consistent with:
> Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. (1 John 4:8)
> There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love. (1 John 4:18)
If God is love, how can God motivate us via fear of hell? I can see him warning us of logical consequences to our actions—like warning ancient Israel that if it continued along its current path, it would get conquered by other nations. But God warning us that God will subject us to eternal conscious torment? I can't square that with the above 1 John passages. It also doesn't square with the fact that the threat of punishment failed in the OT. In fact:
> Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise partook of the same things, that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery. (Hebrews 2:14–15)
Fear of death doesn't drive you to God, but to slavery. Depending on how you translate the following passage in Romans, there's alignment with the ineffectiveness of the threat of death:
> Therefore, just as sin entered into the cosmos through one man, and death through sin, so also death pervaded all humanity, whereupon all sinned (Romans 5:12, David Bentley Hart)
> Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned (Romans 5:12, ESV)
Hart has a long note on this in his The New Testament: A Translation, and I think it makes sense to read Paul as being consistent with John and the author of Hebrews. Thoughts?
What are you even talking about? I'm not posting some fringe view here, this is the overwhelming consensus on the subject. Bart Ehrman has written an entire book on the subject: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0053K28TS/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_hsch_vapi_tkin_p1_i11 .
Sun Tzu allegedly lived around 550 BC and yet he isn't mentioned until the Spring and Autumn Annals 150 years later, and no specific stories about him until the Shiji in 100 BC.
Jesus had Mark and Q and the Pauline letters all written about him within 40 years of his life, and Josephus and the other 3 gospels written by around 100 AD within 70 years.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B004IWR3JW/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1
Forged: Writing in the Name of God--Why the Bible's Authors Are Not Who We Think They Are by Bart Ehrman
> while providing none for their own counter “argument”.
2nd, if my argument is that there are no references stating the scripture is older than 35yrs after the resurrection, providing references would nullify my argument there, einstein.
Apoclyse is a Greek word that we typical translate into English as unveil or revelation. For instance the last book of the Bible Revelation is named Apoclyse in Greek.
Thank you though but pretty much everything I said was from fr John Behr.
https://www.amazon.com/John-Theologian-his-Paschal-Gospel-ebook/dp/B07PBCH1HR
Behr's recent publication might interest you
https://www.amazon.com/John-Theologian-his-Paschal-Gospel-ebook/dp/B07PBCH1HR
Although part three of the book is a twist as he looks at the Johannine school through the 20th century French phenomenologist Michel Henry.
Check out <em>Resurrection of the Son of God</em>, by NT Wright. He makes a powerfully compelling, historical case for the resurrection. You can check out this video for a taste of that argument (the content is similar to the book, but with less historical detail).
> How does anyone know if Jesus Christ ever really existed at all
The historical consensus appears to be that he did, with evidence on roughly the same level as other ancient figures who weren't royalty or authors.
I'd find it rather satisfying if the evidence suggested there never was any such person. But what swayed me wasn't so much the textual evidence, which is as sparse as you'd expect for anybody who wasn't a king. It was the rather embarrassing execution. Nobody spinning a triumphant messiah out of whole cloth would have included that plot point, and it's such a gaping hole they basically invented Christianity to paper over it. Plus itinerant messiahs were kind of a dime a dozen back then; it's less whether he ever lived than what makes him stand out from the crowd.
Of course conceding that there may well have been such a person does not oblige anyone to believe in healings, resurrections, violations of gravity, or any other hokum. And if it makes you feel any better, if Jesus really did live, as a devout 1st century Jew he would find the last 2,000 years of blasphemy in his name absolutely horrifying.
Edit: Further reading and the disclaimer that I'm less an expert than just a rando who occasionally browses /r/askhistorians.
Have you read Thunder, Perfect Mind? That was also discovered in the Nag Hammadi collection.
A New New Testament has it and a whole bunch of other early Christian devotional (though not Scriptural) works, though it's also available free online.
I also like The Gospel of Mary, though I didn't notice anything particular gnostic about it... although now that I look at it again, maybe I didn't read the first few verses, I guess.
Although the person that introduced them to me suggested that there was a growing strain of thought among historians that "gnosticism" as such didn't exist, and that it was just a word used to pillory one's opponents. I don't know how common that actually is. It was the first I had ever heard of it.
You might enjoy A New New Testament, which explores a whole lot of those non-canonical books that early Christians still found useful.
I really enjoyed the Gospel of Mary (Magdalene) and Thunder: Perfect Mind.
If you are truly interested, get Bard Ehrman's book on the issue. He is an agnostic/atheist, but as a scholar/historian he thinks that Jesus of Nazareth the person did exist and he explains in detail why scholars believe that.
>For centuries few people in the Western world doubted that Jesus of Nazareth existed.
Actually Ehrman goes into this and according to him this is not true, that the concept that Jesus was not a real person is actually fairly new, dating to around the French Revolution and gaining traction when it was picked up by Lenin/taught in Soviet places. Before that even Christianity's biggest decriers were more focused on arguing that Jesus was a fraud rather than that he wasn't real.
I was talking about this:
Bart Ehrman's book, his extensive promotion of said book, and debates that followed. The whole book is about how the gospels were about a real person, but reflect very little if anything about the real person. Maybe you looked into Richard Carrier, who does not believe in any kind of historical Jesus.
That said, I am more-or-less uninterested in the topic of Jesus Mythicism. It's a silly argument on either side. Who cares??? If the gospels are rooted around an actual historical figure, who was essentially completely different than his portrayal in said gospels, then cool I guess. In that case it's a mythical narrative about some dude. If he never existed, then it is a mythical narrative about some fictional dude. It's mythical either way, right?
Edit: Actually, I think if you're really interested in the subject go check through the posts in r/AcademicBiblical. There is a lot of information in there on the subject, most of it through the eyes of non-believers, scholars and hobbyists. No need to even make a new post, it has been thoroughly touched upon over there. Like I said, not really a subject I care much about beyond being familiar with it.
> Let's say you have a closed box.
I don't find this analogous to the KCA at all.
>What conclusion? That we can never know? If we knew, it would no longer be supernatrual.
So if we know something is non-physical that makes that it physical?!?!?
>None of that is true!
That is the conclusion of a logical deductive argument. You have to show how the premises are not true to invalidate it; not just make an assertion.
Why? and if so, why doesn't this supernatrual being have a cause? Everything we know that has begun to exist has a cause.>
Causation [cause and effect] is one of the foundational ideas of science.
If you read the KCA then you'd know it says whatever begins to exist must have a cause. Many years ago it was thought the universe simply existed without a beginning; which is why the Big Bang was such a revolutionary idea at the time.
But there must be some sort of metaphysically necessary "something", something that is uncaused otherwise there is the nasty problem of the infinite regress.
>Debatable. HIGHLY debatable.
Oh, please. It is about as debatable as climate change.
>Of which there is none. Study the historians.
Read Erhman he is an atheist leaning agnostic historian was says, after many years of studying the matter, it is absurd to say He didn't exist. And he says he doesn't know of any historian, who has studied the matter who disagrees with him. Watch this short video
> Citations?
This book was written by several different Biblical scholars, one is a pHD. Written specifically to point out the fallacies and flat out lies in Bart Ehrman's defense of the historical Jesus:
http://www.amazon.com/Ehrman-Quest-Historical-Jesus-Nazareth-ebook/dp/B00C9N0WBI/
If you're really interested. Read both (Bart Ehrman's book and the criticism) and take your own conclusions.
Did you read the book yet, that I suggested earlier, by Pagels?
It was originally isolated to what was going on in and around Alexandria, where the two main protagonists resided.
Anyway, read the book, you can get the Kindle version from Amazon, as an instant download, for not too much money. http://www.amazon.com/Revelations-Visions-Prophecy-Politics-Revelation-ebook/dp/B006LU1O44 Or buy the paperback version for $6. (of course that takes longer to get)