Thanks for your reply, David. I'll try to keep this short as I have a lot to do today. First, there are NO original manuscripts or writings available today- with the exception of a fragment f John discovered in the Dead Sea scrolls and that has been dated to the 2nd century, roughly 125+/- AD, which agrees with the conclusion most Bible scholars had always come to- which is that the earliest writings now found in the NT are the letters of Paul, the first written roughly 67 AD. It's hard to believe that the Apostle John lived to be roughly 140+ years old yet died in prison at Patmos.
2nd, there is no historical evidence that any of the 12 Apostles ever existed other Judas and Jesus' brother James. There is no record of
Peter, or him being beheaded in Rome (and the Romans kept good records). And, beyond Paul's letters, there is no real evidence he existed, either. Of the 14 or so letters attributed to him, no more than 6 or 7 are believed to have been written by the same person- Paul.
3rd.- The first 2 chapters of John are clearly written by a different person than the writer of the rest of John and of the Acts of the Apostles. Since those weren't written by an eyewitness, such as the Apostle John, but instead the story was passed along orally for several generations (roughly 20 years at that time) there were certainly changes made with each retelling. Just try to tell a story or rumor on one side of town and it will not be the same once it crosses town and gets back to the original teller and when you consider that the stories were passed on over many decades by people who may have had little interest in accuracy if it conflicted with their own biases, you can imagine how much each changed.
4th- there were literally thousands of stories and scraps of stories told about Jesus, standard gossip, but most were discarded at Nicaea because they didn't tell the story the Church wanted its congregants to believe which made those bishops the exact same type of people as the Priests Jesus railed against.
5th- there was a church in Jerusalem founded by Peter after the death of Jesus- Jesus had no interest in founding another church. He was a Jewish rabbi who lived and taught as a Jew.
6th- The Jews didn't accept Jesus as THE Christ predicted in their teachings because he was nothing like the One their scriptures said would come.
7th- I spent years in university formally studying the history of religion and largely focused on the Abrahamic religions. I would never claim to be a scholar of religion, in any sense of the word but what I've gathered over years of personal and formal studies, I've come to the conclusion that Jesus never claimed to be the 'one and only' Son of God (a great many people in the OT were also referred to as 'son of God', 'son of man' and messiah.
John 10:34 34 Jesus answered them, "Is it not written in your Law, 'I have said you are " gods?" Jesus does seem to have said that all men who seek God with an honest heart will find God, no intermediary needed.
Those who say to you "I have found heaven' or 'I have found the way to God', come with me. are nothing more than wolves in sheep's clothing and will lead you away from the Path to God, the Way I (Jesus) have shown you.
What do I think of Jesus of Nazareth? That he was probably the most spiritual man who has lived in our recorded history, that he had lived many lives before the one as "Jesus" and thus overcome the obstacles of this world, including death and that he graciously spent his life showing others the true way to find God and it required no Temple and priests or Church and ministers of any kind and speaking out against the Temple priests is what led to him being crucified. And I truly believe that Jesus knew that by going against the long-established traditions of the Priesthood would certainly mean a gruesome death for him, yet he knew that men learning how to reach God on their own made it worth (to him) giving up his life to remove the block that believing anything other than repentance would ever save anyone. He neither came to save anyone's soul, since that can only be done by God, and that God was his Father, just as God is Father to ALL who seek him.
I guess that wasn't a short reply at all and I have people waiting for me to get them started with their work.
Again, may God bless you, David and guide your steps on His Path of Righteousness.
