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I spent a great deal of time reading over your website last night. I didn't do that before I emailed you. I read your page on the $1000 reward and that was it. The only link I followed was the one to the discussion with OneLove. What I read on your site puts this whole thing in a different light for me. I was up until 5 am reading stuff on your site. Haha.

I have really weird feelings about you. 1st of all let me explain my background to you. I was raised in a Christian family, went to church almost every Sunday until I was 18 and my parents started letting me make my own choices about that. I have gone on mission trips, did years of bible study, have a mother who is in charge of mission work at their huge Christian Reformed church out here. So my life has always been greatly immersed in Christianity. It just never hit me the way it hits other people. I never had that big, warm, cozy, loving feeling about the religion. I saw it as very hypocritical and thought that the people in my church were 2 faced a**holes. I have been attracted to and obsessed with all things supernatural since I was a little kid. I have always asked questions about the after life, the nature of god, etc. I devoured books on the paranormal and tried to get answers to my burning questions about God from the adults in my life. There were issues with Christianity that I couldn't resolve. Unfortunately nobody was able to give me the answers I wanted. It always boiled down to "having faith" or "trusting that god is perfect" or "we can't begin to understand His plan". I'm sorry but that doesn't cut it. If you want me to accept a God who is invisible, doesn't communicate ever, doesn't give signs he exists, has a shaky history at best, has no proof, etc. then you'd better be able to answer the tough questions. Nobody could. And nobody can to this day. I have friends still from that church I went to. Many of them went into the fields of missionary work and a few have become pastors. I have had long discussions with them about my issues. They can't even give me good answers. If the people who have degrees in this stuff can't provide the answers, and if I can't find them from years of research and study, I have to conclude that the answers don't exist. I can't find a good answer because there isn't one. Period.

Once I got to college and started studying philosophy (my 1st degree is in Philosophy, the one I got at MSU was in Biology) I began to realize that there was a world full of religions that say completely opposite things. It was a sense of relief to finally read about religions that do a better job at addressing the questions I had. I started studying Buddhism heavily. That put me on course to become a student of all religions. Since then (over 15 years ago) I have devoured information about religions and their histories.

Anyways, back to what I was saying about you. I have mixed feelings about you. On one hand I admire and respect Christians who understand that the bible is not the infallible word of God, understand that many stories are not to be taken literally, believe in evolution, etc. I always say that Christians who understand the bible in this way are so much better than the ones who take it all literally. My parents are like this too. They understand that denying scientific proof and research in order to be able to keep their faith is bulls**t. Most of the friends that I still have from church don't feel that way though. They believe in creationism and state that the bible is the infallible word of God. Period. So I respect you for having this view. BUT...(there's always a but) I find that this approach makes you appear very hypocritical. It is hypocrisy to say that some of the bible is open to your interpretation and other parts are not. You seem to jump to the conclusion that stories are allegories if they are too easily disproven by science or history. You seem to interpret the bible in order to conform to your beliefs. The bible doesn't work this way. Don't get me wrong, you are welcome to believe whatever you want. If you want to believe in Jesus and disregard the whole OT, then go for it. If you want to view Jesus as a more spiritual entity, like the gnostics do, then go for it. But the part that irks me is that you use the bible to prove your point of view, use it as evidence for the things you believe. You use your bible as evidence against other's point of view. You use it as hard evidence, as proof. So in essence, you take the bible and the parts that fit your views and beliefs, you call true and use them to prove your point, and the parts that don't matter to your beliefs you dismiss as possible allegories and myth. In other words, you make conclusions about the evidence based on your beliefs. You start with your beliefs and arrange and work and twist the evidence to fit those beliefs. Whereas I alter my beliefs and make final conclusions based on the evidence. You start with your belief and arrange the evidence. I start with the evidence and arrange my beliefs. See the difference? You take a lot of very liberal and convenient liberties with your conclusions and interpretations. I saw this over and over and over again in your debates with other people and on the pages where you go over the evidence for each deities' mythologies. I have a very hard time respecting such an unscientific, illogical, immature way of approaching things. If you had these beliefs that the OT was filled with a lot of mythology and allegories and still believed in Jesus as the son of God and left it at that, I'd be fine. But the fact that you use your beliefs, and the bible, as evidence against other people's beliefs, makes you a hypocrite. Do you understand what I'm trying to explain here? Basically it would be like me using a big book as evidence for my claims. Part of the book I say is factual, historically accurate and infallible. I use it to prove my point. I want you to accept it as the truth. But other parts of the book I want you to ignore because they are obviously (in my opinion, nonetheless) myths and allegories. You would laugh me right off the internet if I tried to do such a juvenile thing! I bring all this up because of something I want to discuss with you in the very near future. I also wanted to explain my views of you and your website after looking though it more carefully. Oh, I was also wondering how old you were. Do you mind telling me?

That's it for today. This turned out much longer than I intended it to be!

-Abigail

Abigail,

Since you told me your story, let me explain mine. I was raised by my mom (my parents divorced when I was 3), who was an atheist the entire time I grew up, though she's more agnostic now. I think that before the time I was 20, I'd been to church maybe twice in my life, once with a Christian friend and once with my mom's Catholic then-boyfriend. I got absolutely nothing out of it either time. The people there struck me as joyfully oblivious.

When I was 20, I had an astronomy course in college. While there certainly wasn't any sort of religious focus to the course, learning about the order in the universe got me thinking about why it existed. I mean, either it "just happened", or there was some sort of purpose behind it. "Just happened" doesn't explain why the universe is capable of creating and sustaining life for billions of years. It doesn't make it impossible, but neither does it explain it. "Purpose behind it" does. I know you're not an atheist [note from David - she is an atheist - I misread somethign she said earlier.  My apologies], so I don't need to get too much into this, I suppose, but that year, I became a deist, believing in God, but not one who has ever interacted with mankind. I also, around that time, married my wife, Nancy, who is a Christian, but not much of a church-goer. She's my favorite type of Christian, she believes and acts on those beliefs in her personal life, but doesn't go around trying to push things on other people or trying to boast about how great and moral she is. She's very humble. She had no problem with the fact that I wasn't a Christian, and didn't make me go to church or try to change my mind, though she did insist on raising our kids as Christians.

Then, when I was 27, my best friend, Andy, who had never been particularly religious in his life - in fact, he could be downright wicked at times - converted to Christianity. I know that some people, when they first convert to a new religion, can be pretty obnoxious about it at first. And he was. He kept telling me to check it out, telling me how much it had changed his life. I'm not the kind of guy who can just flip a switch in my head and make myself believe something, and I'm not going to believe something just because it makes me feel good, but I did tell him that I'd look into Jesus a bit and see if there was any rational reason to believe in Him.

I started out by reading the Gospels. First, I loved the Jesus character. My only real exposure to Him prior to that time was probably the movie "Jesus Christ Superstar" which I saw on TV years earlier (and even then, I thought he was pretty cool), but the Jesus of the Gospels was inspiring. I've always been a peacenik and pacifist. If I'd been a teenager in the sixties, I have little doubt I'd have been a hippie. I was aware that His story was being filtered through the apostles, from whom the story sprung. And, oddly enough, though I didn't care that much for the apostles themselves, who came across as clueless and self-centered at times, Jesus kind of transcended their faults.

The people who wrote them seemed pretty certain that Jesus was for real, that He'd really been resurrected. So the question was, why were they saying it? I saw four choices, really.

One - they were outright lying. They knew He wasn't resurrected, but were pretending He was for some reason, maybe to get money or power.

Two - they were delusional, honestly believing He was resurrected, even though He wasn't.

Three - they believed it, but didn't really know for sure, repeating stories other people had told that got handed down to them with facts twisted around.

Four - it really happened.

At the time, #3 made the most sense to me. I didn't get the feeling that the writers were knowingly spreading bogus stories. They just weren't coming across as liars. And if there was only one Gospel, I could easily say that the writer was delusional. But all four? No, that didn't make sense, either.

So what I had to do was find out how soon after the supposed events happened the Gospels were written, and who really wrote them. If the writers were many-generations removed from the events, then fantasy could easily have gotten mixed in (one guy says "Jesus died, but lives on in our hearts", and another guy, repeating him, just says "Jesus died, but lives on", and the guy repeating him says "Jesus died, but came back from the dead" - the telephone game, you know?). If this was just stuff that they heard and came to believe, then who knows if it was really true or not? So I looked into the evidence regarding when the Gospels were written, and the evidence seems to put them within the lifetimes of their credited authors. The evidence puts Mark and Luke to 62 AD at the latest, Matthew's to around the same time as Luke's (maybe a bit later, but still before 70 AD), and John's to around 80 AD, though since he apparently lived until amost 100 AD, that's still within his lifetime.

So I looked at the arguments for their having been written by anonymous authors who simply borrowed the names, and discovered an interesting fact - it's simply a theory used to explain the viability of option #3. Basically, people who don't believe that Jesus was really resurrected but who (like me) can't accept that the authors were lying or delusional, *assume* that the Gospels were written by anonymous authors many-steps removed simply because it's the most viable explanation for why the Gospels would claim Jesus was resurrected even though He wasn't. I couldn't find any evidence for the theory, though. A theory used to explain a particular phenomena is only good if it explains the evidence. Or at least doesn't conflict with the evidence. This theory conflicts with the evidence big-time.

In short, theory #3 suddenly didn't explain the evidence. The evidence shows them being written pretty close to the events. I'm convinced that if the events didn't really happen, then the people who wrote those Gospels were either delusional or, more likely, knew that they didn't happen.

That said, I'm not 100% convinced that the events really happened. I'm maybe 85% convinced, and I'm willing to take the other 15% on faith for now. It's still possible that the authors were lying, delusional, or were far enough from the events that they could believe that they happened even though they didn't. But I don't feel that the evidence points in that direction, and I go where the evidence points.

"BUT...(there's always a but) I find that this approach makes you appear very hypocritical. It is hypocrisy to say that some of the bible is open to your interpretation and other parts are not. You seem to jump to the conclusion that stories are allegories if they are too easily disproven by science or history."

Though that's not the only criteria I use in determining whether a story is historical or factual. The main thing I consider is the author's relationship to the story. When the story of Adam and Eve was written, who was doing the writing? Was it Adam? Eve? One of their kids? If you ask most Christians, they'll agree (whether they accept is as historical or allegorical) that the author was writing many, many years after the events and was not a first-hand, second-hand, or even third-hand witness to the events. Most say that the author was either handed down the story over many generations, or was told the story by God. If that's the case, then I have to question whether the events really happened. That many generations in between can lead to a lot of details getting muddled. And if the story was told by God...well, was God relaying it as history or as allegory? The story never really says. We know Jesus spoke in allegory at times, right? So why couldn't God? Of course, this doesn't prove that Adam and Eve *is* allegorical, but it certainly points to the *possibility* that it could be.

What might be a better example here is the story of Jonah and the whale. The story isn't, IMO, scientifically impossible. Could Jonah have survived in the belly of a whale for three days? If God meant for it to happen, then yes, it could have. But I accept Jonah as also being allegorical, mostly because of the author not appearing to be close to the events.

But for other OT stories, the author does appear to be closer to the events. Much was written by Moses, David, Solomon, Jeremiah, etc. pretty soon after the events happened. There doesn't appear to be a big gap where lots of fantasy could have snuck in, and they don't appear to be writing allegory. I'll admit that there's a lot of things in there that I'm unsure whether they're historical or allegorical, or a bit of both, but I don't feel the need to be 100% sure. I'm fine with saying "maybe" for now. I think that getting meaning from the story is more important than whether you take it literally or not.

But back to your point - you're right that if history or science shows that a given story is unlikely to be literal, then I think this would be a good reason to suppose it isn't literal. Science shows that the universe was around for billions of years before mankind showed up. I accept that as a fact. I am more certain of that fact than I am of Jesus having been resurrected. But the story of Adam and Eve says that the universe was around for only a few days before man showed up. If I accept that the universe was around for billions of years before man showed up, then how can I possibly accept that it was only around for a few days before man showed up? I can't make myself believe two conflicting things. I must accept one or the other, but not both. I could, of course, accept Adam and Eve as being literal and then accept that science is wrong when it says that the universe is billions of years old, but I can't make myself believe that science is wrong on this. If it's wrong, then how can we see stars that are billions of light-years away? Science being wrong on this seems impossible. Adam and Eve being allegorical doesn't seem impossible. Since I can't make myself believe something which seems impossible, then I can only conclude that Adam and Eve is allegorical. This is a rational decision on my part, not based on personal whims or anything random. I don't feel that I interpret the Bible to conform to my beliefs, but interpret it in the way that best explains the facts.

"Basically it would be like me using a big book as evidence for my claims. Part of the book I say is factual, historically accurate and infallible. I use it to prove my point. I want you to accept it as the truth. But other parts of the book I want you to ignore because they are obviously (in my opinion, nonetheless) myths and allegories. You would laugh me right off the internet if I tried to do such a juvenile thing!"

It would depend on why you did it and what criteria you used in order to determine what is historical and what is allegorical. Think of it this way - suppose a friend of yours said, "the Detroit Pistons slaughtered the L.A. Lakers last night!" I assume you would accept that your friend was using a figure of speech there, that the Pistons didn't actually kill the Lakers, but simply beat them at basketball, right? But then the next day, your friend said, "a guy in New York slaughtered his entire family!" Wouldn't you accept that your friend was using "slaughtered" here to mean that the man killed his family? If so, would it be hypocritical of you to interpret "slaughtered" one way the first day, and another way the next day? Of course not. Accepting one thing a source says as metaphor doesn't mean you must accept everything the source says as metaphor. As long as you have a rational criteria for differentiating the two, it's fine.

And also keep in mind that I'm not trying to destroy other people's beliefs. If someone wants to be a Muslim or a Pagan or an atheist, or whatever, I'm 100% behind their right to believe what they want. I am not setting out to stop them. I don't go into the forums for people of other faiths and try to convert them. But I do feel that there's a lot of misinformation going around the internet about Christianity, and I'm setting out to correct that misinformation. And I welcome anyone to correct me if I'm saying anything on my website is false, and have already corrected a few things based on what people have told me.

"But the fact that you use your beliefs, and the bible, as evidence against other people's beliefs, makes you a hypocrite. Do you understand what I'm trying to explain here?"

Not really. Can you give me an example of where I do that? That's the kind of thing I try to avoid doing, but I suppose one could say that my arguing for my beliefs automatically equals arguing against other people's beliefs. But I think I'm well within my rights to argue for my beliefs if I want, and I'm not consciously trying to go after other people's faiths.

"Oh, I was also wondering how old you were. Do you mind telling me?"

Not at all. I'm 42, married, and have four daughters (plus two dogs and three cats). How old are you, if you don't mind my asking?

David

I'm not asking for ALL of the proof, just the evidence regarding at least half of the Christ-myther claims for any one deity. Portions of the stories, or translations of the relevant heiroglyphs, would be fine. I can't see how that would take hours.

I have already explained several times how it would take hours. Different experts, different books, hundreds of different funerary texts, hundreds of different writings from temples, etc.

I don't need thousands of lines. One piece of evidence for each claim would be fine.

Again, it somehow MY job to sift through the 1000's of lines to type out the few specifics lines you want for proof. And you think this would take me 10 minutes. HA! Yeah, actually typing out the lines wouldn't take long. But finding them in thousands of different sources and lines would take days. This is why....ready? YOU SHOULD READ A BOOK!!!!

Not at all. If there was evidence for the idea that the New Testament texts were written by opposing, or anonymous, authors, I would gladly consider that evidence. But that seems to be one more thing that people frequently claim, but never present evidence for.

Per Abby's request, I have separated out the conversation about the evidence for Jesus here

"I don't speak ancient Egyptian either, so I'll gladly take what the translations of the heiroglyphs say.

Perfect. Then you should pick up some books written by the scholars who translated them or has worked with the writings themselves. I can recommend a few.

"I read the English translations. I do know how to read English.

And of course you didn't comment on my explanation of the serious problem of an untrained Westerner trying to read direct translation of ancient texts originally written in dead languages. Of course you ignore that part of my email. Pretend that doesn't exist. Pretend I never said those things. Pretend that everyone reading this still thinks that reading an ancient text that was directly translated into English is an easy, doable thing for an untrained person. I'm sure you are able to get the full understanding of it, David. You must be magic.

"Yet I've seen many Christ-mythers ascribing these parallels to pre-Christian deities such as Horus, Mithra, Buddha, etc, despite the fact that these parallels are not in those stories. That's the reason I'm skeptical of anything coming from anyone making such claims, and am asking for evidence and not just more claims."

Many of the parallels DO come from pre-Christian deities. You say so yourself on your website. But your website does NOT differentiate between the Mystery religions and the ancient ones. For that you appear intellectually dishonest. Again, I don't think you did this purposefully. I know that this is directly related to the fact that you haven't read a single book on the subject. Again....your lack of knowledge is a major problem here.

" If some people are claiming that ALL of those parallels you list on your site come from a PRE-CHRISTIAN religion, then yes, I agree with you. I have yet to see any examples from before the 1st century for things like Dionysus having 12 disciples, being born in a cave and having a bright star in the east show people the way to him as a baby. The Mystery religions are probably where these things are mentioned. As I have explained to you, the Mystery religions popped up around the same time as Christianity."

You're just saying that despite many of the parallels being fabricated, the ones which are valid are enough to prove copycatting. Is that right?

Yes. That's correct. I am saying that the huge list of similarities that DO exist prior to Christianity are enough to prove that Jesus is simply a retelling of the God Man myth. The small details don't matter. If the formula goes (just using 1 example): the god is killed violently and then resurrects, the fact that the methods of murder are different is not enough to say that there is no correlation. The fact that ALL those similarities cannot be ascribed to any ONE deity does not make it any less obvious either. The big God Man points are: being born of a virgin figure, being half man/half god, having a god father/human mother, miracles, being persecuted or violently killed, resurrecting, being a savior God, ascending/descending, etc... I know I am forgetting some, but you get the picture. The fact that all of these points can be traced to deities that pre-date Christianity is quite telling. The tiny details are unimportant and, for one, show societal and cultural differences.

If so, I'm wondering why you think it is that people feel the need to fabricate additional parallels, if the valid parallels are enough to prove copycatting?

I don't know. I don't know these people personally. I think that you hit it right on the money when you say that people read books (like Archaya S') and simply repeat the information. Or they watch a movie like Zeitgeist (which I have never seen by the way) and repeat what they hear. This is why I wouldn't read a book where the authors simply reference other authors in this genre or list no references at all. The books I read reference the stuff from the Mystery religions and stuff from ancient Egyptian/Greek/etc texts.

BUT... just because there are a handful of people who DO repeat this information without checking it for themselves or spread incorrect information does NOT mean that there isn't a valid point in the argument. It just means you need to seek out better sources than the ones you have been dealing with. Calling ALL Christ Mythers liars and stating that they have no proof for their claims is wrong. According to you, and others who use the term "Christ Myther", anyone who believes that Jesus is a hodge-podge of various Pagan deities is a Christ Myther. This would make me, and all the scholars who see these parallels, a Christ-Myther. So maybe you are better off saying that some people are spreading incorrect information ABOUT the Christ Myth parallels, instead of saying that Christ Mythers (in general) are spreading incorrect information. Don't lump us all together.

"That's why I'll only take evidence that dates to pre-Christian times. Evidence regarding deities that may or may not be pre-Christian doesn't prove anything."

That's your opinion. As I stated there are many scholars who think that this (along with all the pre-christian parallels) proves that Christianity mimicked the other competing religions from that area and time. Ignoring the evidence from the Mystery religions will only give you part of the picture. Again, this is intellectually dishonest. You are making an assumption about this evidence before even studying it or reading what scholars have to say on the subject. You simply dismiss it because you want to.

But you can find parallels between any two stories, real or fictional, if you try hard enough.

We don't have to try hard or stretch to find the God Man parallels with Jesus. Your examples of stories that have similarities fail here too. You are comparing 2 people who existed without question. You compare 2 men that we have pictures of, birth and death records for, correspondences to and from, writings about from the time that they lived, etc. We have NONE of this for Jesus. NONE. Comparing 2 mythological figures is a different science than comparing 2 historical people. You are asking people to forgot about all the "Jesus is magic" stuff and focus solely on the fact that people claim he existed. We can't do that. He is a supernatural being. Therefore comparing him to the other supernatural beings that existed prior to him gives us great insight. We are comparing his supernatural attributes to other deities. We are not comparing his historical attributes. Big difference.

"We also have to, of course, consider the evidence for Jesus' existence, which is stronger than the evidence for almost everyone else from His time or earlier. We have over a thousand pages of text from within 150 years of His time, written by about fifty different authors, some of whom were non-Christians."

Not one source that was written WHILE he was alive. What we have are a few mentions (the 3 you have used as evidence) of a Christ who is the God Head of a religion in the area. So? There were Christians preaching in the decades after Jesus' alleged death. So because a few people mentioned this fact, this means Jesus existed? Nope. Sorry. Not one of the 3 sources you gave me were during Jesus' life time. The earliest was like 80 years after he died. You show me 1 single NAMED SOURCE (again, NAMED. NAMED. So you cannot use the NT since not a single gospel was signed or written in the 1st person) that was written during Jesus' lifetime. Just one. That's all I ask.

Quick question - Have you ever read the Nag Hammadi Texts? They are often referred to as the Gnostic Gospels. If not, you really should. Fascinating read in which the authors claim to be other eye witnesses to jesus (Thomas, Mary Magdelaine, etc). Again, just like the New Testament, these are COPIES of the originals. These have been dated as being written in the 4th century. In these texts Jesus is described in some very different ways. There are parts where Jesus prays to God the Mother, speaks about magic and universal secrets, eye witness accounts stating that Jesus didn't leave foot prints when he walked, etc. All kinds of crazy stuff. The book that I think is best about these texts is called "The Gnostic Gospels" by Elaine Pagel. The introduction alone when the history of these texts is described is fascinating alone! It could be a movie. You should check out this book.

"ABIGAIL: The virgin birth is interesting too in that I don't see any real decent evidence that even Jesus had this characteristic. The virgin birth was mentioned in TWO of the what? 27 books of the NT?"

DAVID:   If the other 25 books actually contradicted the idea, then perhaps you'd have a point here. Simply saying that the other 25 (most of which weren't biographical in nature) didn't mention a certain detail isn't a rebuttal of that detail. If I were to read 27 articles about a famous person, and only two of them said that his wife's name was "Helen" (with none giving a different name for his wife), I'd be satisfied that his wife's name was "Helen".

Some dude's wife's name is the same as a VIRGIN BIRTH??? Ummm, okay. So basically you're saying that the virgin birth is completely unimportant and irrelevant to the story. If the famous person's wife's name was relevant to the story and an extremely important aspect, then it would be really weird if the other articles didn't mention it and it would probably cause people to question if the name was correct in the articles that do. The virgin birth is the most significant miracle in the history of the world. It is crucial and very important to the identity of Jesus as a God. Yet only 2 authors bother to even mention it. Weird. The virgin birth ONLY appears in Luke and Matthew, years after the event, to prove Jesus's divinity. The birth stories in the two gospels come from different sources and differ widely but both contradict their central thesis that Jesus's mother was a virgin by giving a genealogy to show that Joseph was descended from David, an irrelevancy if Joseph had not impregnated his wife. The original idea was obviously to trace Jesus's lineage through Joseph to David to fulfill messianic prophecy. This suggests that the virgin birth part was added later.

"It doesn't work that way. If two accounts of the same series of events disagree on some details but agree on other details, you don't discount the details on which they agree."

Maybe it doesn't work that way for you. But if the authors are unknown and at best we have copies of copies of their originals stories, then yes, I sure would discount them based on the fact that they can't agree on the details. The messed up details on it's own may not be too much of a cause for alarm. But the messed up details (very specific details might I add) along with all the other issues of the NT and the Jesus myth creates an enormous problem.

The accounts of Julius Caesar's assassination disagree on minor details, but no rational person takes that as evidence that Caesar wasn't assassinated.

If the accounts disagreed on major points like the date and time of the assassination then you might have a point. Besides, you are comparing a totally natural, scientifically possible thing (being murdered) to an unnatural, scientifically impossible thing (being born of a virgin). Again, huge difference. When asking the world to believe in something impossible, details are everything, my friend.

-Abigail

"I have already explained several times how it would take hours. Different experts, different books, hundreds of different funerary texts, hundreds of different writings from temples, etc."

That would be true if I was asking for hundreds of pieces of evidence. I'm not asking for many. About ten for any one deity would do it. Surely that wouldn't take hours. I know it would take less time than you've already spent trying to avoid giving me that evidence.

"Many of the parallels DO come from pre-Christian deities. You say so yourself on your website."

No, I don't. I do agree that some pre-Christian deities have some similarities to Christ, but don't believe, and don't say, that the Jesus story was borrowing from them. As I mentioned earlier, Napoleon has some similarities to ancient gods, but that doesn't imply that the Napoleon story borrowed those details from ancient mythology. The parallels have to be very significant to prove "borrowing", and they aren't that significant.

"But your website does NOT differentiate between the Mystery religions and the ancient ones. For that you appear intellectually dishonest."

That's because these are simply responses to the lists that Christ-mythers spread all over the internet, and those lists don't differentiate between the mystery religions and the ancient ones. I'm simply responding to their lists.

"If some people are claiming that ALL of those parallels you list on your site come from a PRE-CHRISTIAN religion, then yes, I agree with you."

Good. But then my question is this: If the valid parallels between pre-Christian deities and the Jesus story are enough to prove that Jesus was copycatting from them, then why do so many Christ-mythers feel the need to create bogus parallels? Obviously, the people who make these lists up believe that the valid parallels aren't very convincing, wouldn't you agree? If they were convincing, why not just spread those?

"BUT... just because there are a handful of people who DO repeat this information without checking it for themselves or spread incorrect information does NOT mean that there isn't a valid point in the argument."

It's at least more than enough to make very skeptical when other people come along repeating similar claims and also failing to provide me with any evidence in support of those claims. You're right that there could, hypothetically, be a valid point to the argument. But when you simply do the exact same thing they do - repeat the claims, refuse to provide evidence for them, give excuses for not providing it, resort to insults - it makes me just as skeptical of you as I am of them.

"We don't have to try hard or stretch to find the God Man parallels with Jesus. Your examples of stories that have similarities fail here too. You are comparing 2 people who existed without question. You compare 2 men that we have pictures of, birth and death records for, correspondences to and from, writings about from the time that they lived, etc."

But it proves that someone having parallels with earlier stories doesn't prove borrowing. It's possible that having parallels with ancient deities (as with Napoleon) can simply be coincidence and not a case of the latter person being a work of fiction. And with Lincoln/Kennedy, we're comparing the story of ONE person to the story of ONE person. With Jesus and the pre-Christian deities, you're comparing the story of ONE person (Jesus) to the story of *hundreds* of earlier deities, many of whom have *dozens* of alternate versions of their story. Basically, you're picking from a huge pot with a lot of different stories in it. It would be mind-boggling if you *didn't* find any parallels. Just as if I looked for parallels between JFK and every major leader throughout history before him, I'm sure I'd find a lot more parallels then I do between JFK and Lincoln alone. It's inevitable.

"Not one source that was written WHILE he was alive."

Which is the case with many ancient historical figures.

"What we have are a few mentions (the 3 you have used as evidence) of a Christ who is the God Head of a religion in the area. So? There were Christians preaching in the decades after Jesus' alleged death. So because a few people mentioned this fact, this means Jesus existed?"

If they were historians, writing about Jesus as a historical figure, yes. They didn't just write that he was the leader of a religion, but wrote about details of his life, like his having a brother named James and of his being executed by Pilate. These historians clearly believed that He existed, despite their being non-Christians. One thing I've been asking people is if they can name any fictional character who was written about by even *one* historian as if they believed that character existed within the last century. So far, no one has been able to. Can you?

"Not one of the 3 sources you gave me were during Jesus' life time. The earliest was like 80 years after he died."

You said there weren't any within a hundred years. I gave you three. Now you're acting like 80 years is important. But the earliest one, Josephus, was about sixty years after (93 AD). Keep moving those goalposts and maybe you'll eventually get them where you want them.

"You show me 1 single NAMED SOURCE (again, NAMED. NAMED. So you cannot use the NT since not a single gospel was signed or written in the 1st person) that was written during Jesus' lifetime. Just one. That's all I ask."

There aren't any, but the same is true for *almost everyone* who lived in ancient times. Think about this - Ancient historians wrote about the deaths of many people, wouldn't you agree? In most cases, these historical records which mention their deaths are all the evidence we have of these people. So for all of these people who were written about historians, we don't have a single source that was written during their lifetimes. So are you seriously going to argue that all of these people whose deaths these historians wrote about, didn't exist? If not, what criteria do you use to determine which of these people existed and which did not? Be consistent.

"Quick question - Have you ever read the Nag Hammadi Texts?"

I haven't read all of them, but I've read parts.

"They are often referred to as the Gnostic Gospels. If not, you really should. Fascinating read in which the authors claim to be other eye witnesses to jesus (Thomas, Mary Magdelaine, etc). Again, just like the New Testament, these are COPIES of the originals. These have been dated as being written in the 4th century."

If they were written in the 4th century, then obviously they weren't written by Thomas, Mary, etc., unless those people lived to be VERY old.

"In these texts Jesus is described in some very different ways. There are parts where Jesus prays to God the Mother, speaks about magic and universal secrets, eye witness accounts stating that Jesus didn't leave foot prints when he walked, etc. All kinds of crazy stuff. The book that I think is best about these texts is called "The Gnostic Gospels" by Elaine Pagel. The introduction alone when the history of these texts is described is fascinating alone! It could be a movie. You should check out this book."

I've had discussions about these texts, some of which are on my website. I know that Dan and I got into it a bit:

http://www.kingdavid8.com/Letters/LetterReligiousThingsJesus.html

Basically, if I have to choose between two different versions of the story, one of which was written in the same century as the events and the other was written 300 years later, I'm more likely to trust the versions written in the same century.

"Some dude's wife's name is the same as a VIRGIN BIRTH??? Ummm, okay. So basically you're saying that the virgin birth is completely unimportant and irrelevant to the story."

No, I'm saying it's clearly part of the story. Some writers not mentioning that part of the story doesn't change that. Just as some writers not mentioning that the guy's wife's name is "Helen" doesn't mean that her name isn't "Helen".

"If the famous person's wife's name was relevant to the story and an extremely important aspect, then it would be really weird if the other articles didn't mention it and it would probably cause people to question if the name was correct in the articles that do."

Okay, but of those other 25 books, 23 of them weren't even stories. Not being biographical writings, details of Jesus' birth aren't really relevant. And for Mark and John, they probably never talked to anyone who was a first or second-hand witness to the events surrounding Jesus' birth. The most they could have done is just copied what Matthew and Luke said, but people already had that information, so what was the point?

"The virgin birth is the most significant miracle in the history of the world."

Really? You think it's more important than the resurrection? How do you figure that?

"It is crucial and very important to the identity of Jesus as a God. Yet only 2 authors bother to even mention it. Weird. The virgin birth ONLY appears in Luke and Matthew, years after the event, to prove Jesus's divinity. The birth stories in the two gospels come from different sources and differ widely but both contradict their central thesis that Jesus's mother was a virgin by giving a genealogy to show that Joseph was descended from David, an irrelevancy if Joseph had not impregnated his wife."

First, Luke's genealogy was that of Mary. He was telling her version of the story and we know from other sources that Heli was her father. Joseph, being married to Mary, became the son of Heli. Matthew's genealogy was that of Joseph, but fatherhood wasn't simply about biology in those days. He was, in every way but biology, the father of Jesus. When a man married a woman with a child, he became the child's father.

"The original idea was obviously to trace Jesus's lineage through Joseph to David to fulfill messianic prophecy. This suggests that the virgin birth part was added later."

How so?

"Maybe it doesn't work that way for you. But if the authors are unknown and at best we have copies of copies of their originals stories, then yes, I sure would discount them based on the fact that they can't agree on the details."

Okay, so I assume, then, that you don't believe Julius Caesar was assassinated, right? For that, all we have are copies of copies of the original stories, and they don't agree on the details. I hope you'll be consistent and discount Caesar's assassination, too.

"If the accounts disagreed on major points like the date and time of the assassination then you might have a point. Besides, you are comparing a totally natural, scientifically possible thing (being murdered) to an unnatural, scientifically impossible thing (being born of a virgin). Again, huge difference. When asking the world to believe in something impossible, details are everything, my friend."

So you only discount the Jesus story because you don't believe in miracles. Why not just say so? Obviously, you don't believe in the virgin birth because you don't believe it's scientifically possible, not because you see apparent discrepancies in the story, right? Why discount it for reasons that, if applied consistently, would force you to discount pretty much every other historical event for which we have multiple attestations? All I'm asking you to do is be consistent.

"The messed up details on it's own may not be too much of a cause for alarm. But the messed up details (very specific details might I add) along with all the other issues of the NT and the Jesus myth creates an enormous problem."

So why get into the "messed up details" at all, if they don't disprove the Jesus story any more than they disprove the story of Caesar's assassination? Why resort to a tactic which clearly doesn't work and, if used consistently, disproves many other things in which you believe? Why not just admit that you don't believe that Jesus' miracles are possible, and that's why you don't believe in the Jesus story?

If my wife and I were to both describe our wedding day to you in detail, I'm sure we'd disagree on many details. For that matter, I'm pretty sure we'd disagree about what time the ceremony took place (it was over 2 decades ago, and I'm not really sure). But let's say that we both told you that, during the ceremony, we levitated off the ground and flew around the church. I'm guessing that you'd have a hard time believing the story, right? But what would be your reason for discounting our story? The inconsistencies? Or the levitation stuff?

David

"The main thing I consider is the author's relationship to the story. When the story of Adam and Eve was written, who was doing the writing? Was it Adam? Eve? One of their kids? If you ask most Christians, they'll agree (whether they accept is as historical or allegorical) that the author was writing many, many years after the events and was not a first-hand, second-hand, or even third-hand witness to the events. Most say that the author was either handed down the story over many generations, or was told the story by God. If that's the case, then I have to question whether the events really happened. That many generations in between can lead to a lot of details getting muddled. And if the story was told by God...well, was God relaying it as history or as allegory? The story never really says. We know Jesus spoke in allegory at times, right? So why couldn't God? Of course, this doesn't prove that Adam and Eve *is* allegorical, but it certainly points to the *possibility* that it could be."

The 1st 5 books of the OT were (allegedly) written by Moses. They are the divinely inspired words of God. I am surprised that you don't know this. This is why so many Christians cannot accept evolution. They have to figure out how to come to terms with the fact that the divinely inspired words of God are wrong. Many will not do this.

"What might be a better example here is the story of Jonah and the whale. The story isn't, IMO, scientifically impossible. Could Jonah have survived in the belly of a whale for three days? If God meant for it to happen, then yes, it could have. But I accept Jonah as also being allegorical, mostly because of the author not appearing to be close to the events."

Scientifically impossible... hold on to that thought...

But for other OT stories, the author does appear to be closer to the events. Much was written by Moses, David, Solomon, Jeremiah, etc. pretty soon after the events happened.

Allegedly.

But back to your point - you're right that if history or science shows that a given story is unlikely to be literal, then I think this would be a good reason to suppose it isn't literal.

But again, you are being hypocritical here. Rising from the dead, virgin birth, walking on water, healing the blind, etc are not scientifically possible. But these details are crucial to your belief so you call them true. The details that are not crucial to your belief you easily dismiss as mythology. You are putting yourself in the position as final authority of what is true in the bible in order to fit it into your own belief system. That's hypocritical and that is described in Peter as being a big no-no.

Science shows that the universe was around for billions of years before mankind showed up. I accept that as a fact. I am more certain of that fact than I am of Jesus having been resurrected. But the story of Adam and Eve says that the universe was around for only a few days before man showed up. If I accept that the universe was around for billions of years before man showed up, then how can I possibly accept that it was only around for a few days before man showed up? I can't make myself believe two conflicting things. I must accept one or the other, but not both. I could, of course, accept Adam and Eve as being literal and then accept that science is wrong when it says that the universe is billions of years old, but I can't make myself believe that science is wrong on this. If it's wrong, then how can we see stars that are billions of light-years away? Science being wrong on this seems impossible. Adam and Eve being allegorical doesn't seem impossible. Since I can't make myself believe something which seems impossible, then I can only conclude that Adam and Eve is allegorical. This is a rational decision on my part, not based on personal whims or anything random. I don't feel that I interpret the Bible to conform to my beliefs, but interpret it in the way that best explains the facts."

This is great! Now do this exact same thing with rising from the dead, being born of a virgin, walking on water, etc. Science clearly states that these things are impossible. You can even research the properties of science that make these things impossible. But you have no problem believing in them from the bible. So you pick and chose. Some things that are unnatural you believe, others you don't. Hypocritical.

"It would depend on why you did it and what criteria you used in order to determine what is historical and what is allegorical. Think of it this way - suppose a friend of yours said, "the Detroit Pistons slaughtered the L.A. Lakers last night!" I assume you would accept that your friend was using a figure of speech there, that the Pistons didn't actually kill the Lakers, but simply beat them at basketball, right? But then the next day, your friend said, "a guy in New York slaughtered his entire family!" Wouldn't you accept that your friend was using "slaughtered" here to mean that the man killed his family? If so, would it be hypocritical of you to interpret "slaughtered" one way the first day, and another way the next day? Of course not. Accepting one thing a source says as metaphor doesn't mean you must accept everything the source says as metaphor. As long as you have a rational criteria for differentiating the two, it's fine."

Terrible example. In one my friend is using a commonly used phrased that means something else, and in the other she is using the literal version. Super easy to differentiate. Plus, I know my friend. So if she was saying something that I couldn't interpret as true or allegorical I could just ask. But if I assumed everything that didn't make sense to me was just an allegory I would be erroneous in my way of approaching things. That's what you are doing.

And also keep in mind that I'm not trying to destroy other people's beliefs. If someone wants to be a Muslim or a Pagan or an atheist, or whatever, I'm 100% behind their right to believe what they want. I am not setting out to stop them. I don't go into the forums for people of other faiths and try to convert them.

I know you're not. And I appreciate that about you.

"ABIGAIL: But the fact that you use your beliefs, and the bible, as evidence against other people's beliefs, makes you a hypocrite. Do you understand what I'm trying to explain here?"

DAVID: Not really. Can you give me an example of where I do that?

You're joking, right? When discussing the historical Jesus you use the bible as evidence every single time. As a matter of fact, the bible is the bulk of your evidence for this.

"How old are you, if you don't mind my asking?"

I'm 35, not married but have been with my S.O. for over 6 years. We have 2 dogs and 2 cats. No kids, never wanted them. :-)

-Abigail

"The 1st 5 books of the OT were (allegedly) written by Moses. They are the divinely inspired words of God. I am surprised that you don't know this."

Allegedly, yes. And I do believe that he wrote most of the Pentateuch. But like many people, I have my doubts that he wrote the beginning of Genesis and the end of Deuteronomy.

"But again, you are being hypocritical here. Rising from the dead, virgin birth, walking on water, healing the blind, etc are not scientifically possible"

That would be true only if science were all there was, which I don't believe is the case. Saying that these things are not scientifically possible is like saying that me jumping upwards is not gravitationally possible.

"The details that are not crucial to your belief you easily dismiss as mythology."

You might want to re-read my letter again, since I explain why I dismiss some stories as likely being mythology. It has to do with the relationship of the writer to the events.

"This is great! Now do this exact same thing with rising from the dead, being born of a virgin, walking on water, etc."

Sure. Since I believe that those stories were written by people relatively close to the events, I believe that it's very unlikely that those stories could be allegorical.

"Science clearly states that these things are impossible. You can even research the properties of science that make these things impossible. But you have no problem believing in them from the bible."

Again, I don't believe that science is all there is.

"So you pick and chose. Some things that are unnatural you believe, others you don't. Hypocritical."

And as I pointed out in my letter, my criteria for determining what is historical and what is allegorical involves the author's relationship to the events, not whether the story involves "miracles" or not. That's what I was trying to explain with the Jonah example. I'm sorry if I was unclear about that.

"Terrible example. In one my friend is using a commonly used phrased that means something else, and in the other she is using the literal version. Super easy to differentiate. Plus, I know my friend. So if she was saying something that I couldn't interpret as true or allegorical I could just ask. But if I assumed everything that didn't make sense to me was just an allegory I would be erroneous in my way of approaching things. That's what you are doing."

How do you figure that? As with this example, I have logical criteria for determining what is literal and what is allegorical, and it has nothing to do with whether the story is "scientifically possible" or not.

"ABIGAIL: But the fact that you use your beliefs, and the bible, as evidence against other people's beliefs, makes you a hypocrite. Do you understand what I'm trying to explain here?"

DAVID:: Not really. Can you give me an example of where I do that?

ABIGAIL: You're joking, right? When discussing the historical Jesus you use the bible as evidence every single time. As a matter of fact, the bible is the bulk of your evidence for this."

I'm sorry. I meant, can you give me an example of where I use the Bible as evidence *against other people's beliefs*?

David

"That would be true if I was asking for hundreds of pieces of evidence. I'm not asking for many. About ten for any one deity would do it. Surely that wouldn't take hours. I know it would take less time than you've already spent trying to avoid giving me that evidence."

How would you know? Name 1 book you've read on the subject. Or name a few texts that contain such stories. Tell me how many pages and lines of texts there are in each. Plus, we have already discussed (dear GOD do I get sick of having to repeat myself with you), the proof comes from ancient deities (a good dozen of them) AND from the later Mystery religions. AND... for each ancient deity there are SEVERAL parallels to Jesus. The proof comes from ALL OF THIS. Not from one deity, from ALL. Get it? Read that again. Now read it again. One more time for good measure. There, I shouldn't have to repeat that ANYMORE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Typing this all out to you from my stack of books and list of websites would not take me a few minutes. Are you seriously this dense? I don't know how much of this I can take from you. Honest to god. You always act so innocent when people stop talking to you. You act like such a victim. THIS IS WHY! You make people repeat things, you miss points, you refuse to read on your own, you dismiss large parts of arguments.... it's all really juvenile and irritating. I have seen many people tell you this too. So this is not just my complaint.

"ABIGAIL: Many of the parallels DO come from pre-Christian deities. You say so yourself on your website."

DAVID: No, I don't. I do agree that some pre-Christian deities have some similarities to Christ, but don't believe, and don't say, that the Jesus story was borrowing from them."

*rolls eyes* Semantics. That's not what I meant. For f**k's sake, let me reword: you show on your site that Jesus has many similarities to pre-christian deities. That was my point and you know it.

"As I mentioned earlier, Napoleon has some similarities to ancient gods, but that doesn't imply that the Napoleon story borrowed those details from ancient mythology. The parallels have to be very significant to prove "borrowing", and they aren't that significant."

Again, you are talking about a real, tangible person that we can prove without a shadow of a doubt existed. Any similarities would be chalked up to "freaky". When comparing 2 mythologies, it becomes obvious that they influenced each other.

"ABIGAIL: But your website does NOT differentiate between the Mystery religions and the ancient ones. For that you appear intellectually dishonest."

DAVID: That's because these are simply responses to the lists that Christ-mythers spread all over the internet, and those lists don't differentiate between the mystery religions and the ancient ones. I'm simply responding to their lists."

So you admit that you are being purposely intellectually dishonest. I'm glad you agree.

"If the valid parallels between pre-Christian deities and the Jesus story are enough to prove that Jesus was copycatting from them, then why do so many Christ-mythers feel the need to create bogus parallels? Obviously, the people who make these lists up believe that the valid parallels aren't very convincing, wouldn't you agree? If they were convincing, why not just spread those?"

Again, you are asking me to speak for people that I don't know, have never met, have never read their books, etc. How can I do that? And again you are lumping all of us in with the group of people who do this. It is unfair and dishonest. Like I've stated previously, the Christ Mythers I have studied, state that there is a huge list of parallels. Some of them come from pre-christian deities and others come from the Mystery religions that popped up at the same time as christianity. The experts are all over the map on the subject of the Mystery parallels. Some think that Christians stole from the Mysteries, some think that the Mysteries stole from Christians, some think that there isn't enough evidence to say either way. The books I read state that the list of parallels from ancient religions is enough to suggest already that the Christians were highly influenced and borrowing from other religions. Take that and put that with the fact that the Mysteries have even stronger striking parallels, and put those with the historical problems of the bible and Jesus' existence and you have a pretty solid claim for the Christ Myth. It is a multi-faceted theory.

"ABIGAIL: BUT... just because there are a handful of people who DO repeat this information without checking it for themselves or spread incorrect information does NOT mean that there isn't a valid point in the argument."

DAVID: It's at least more than enough to make very skeptical when other people come along repeating similar claims and also failing to provide me with any evidence in support of those claims. You're right that there could, hypothetically, be a valid point to the argument. But when you simply do the exact same thing they do - repeat the claims, refuse to provide evidence for them, give excuses for not providing it, resort to insults - it makes me just as skeptical of you as I am of them."

Who? Me? I haven't repeated their claims at all. Where have I repeated their claims? Show me one place. Nor have I refused to show evidence. Read books on the Mystery cults of the first 4 centuries, read books by egyptologists like Sir E. A. Wallis Budge, who has translated the myths from their hieroglyphics - I have made it abundantly clear where I have gotten my information. I have also told you that I refuse to type out these books or buy them for you. The fact that you refuse to read proves, without a shadow of a doubt, that you desperately fear being proved wrong and that you will do whatever avoidance technique available to you to be sure you don't have to see the evidence that goes against your faith. The fact that I wont retype out books for you or spend my own money on your education does NOT mean that I refuse to provide evidence. I surely hope you mistyped when you wrote this paragraph though since I clearly have not repeated their claims or refused evidence. I have been slamming you with evidence for days now.

I did resort to insults and I apologize. But people who refuse to read books or do their own research piss me off. BIG TIME!!! I see it ALL THE TIME! And I am NOT the only person emailing you with this complaint. This was a common theme amongst the people you have been emailing with. And you are just as guilty as the Christ Mythers you claim to dislike. You do the exact same thing they do - present half truths and partial arguments and purposely leave out valid and important information for the opposing viewpoint. You are just as bad, if not worse since you are the one pointing your finger at them!!

"We don't have to try hard or stretch to find the God Man parallels with Jesus. Your examples of stories that have similarities fail here too. You are comparing 2 people who existed without question. You compare 2 men that we have pictures of, birth and death records for, correspondences to and from, writings about from the time that they lived, etc."

But it proves that someone having parallels with earlier stories doesn't prove borrowing."

That's your opinion. Many of us, many scholars especially, see a great deal of evidence for borrowing when a later mythology takes the form of common mythological themes from the past.

It's possible that having parallels with ancient deities (as with Napoleon) can simply be coincidence and not a case of the latter person being a work of fiction. And with Lincoln/Kennedy, we're comparing the story of ONE person to the story of ONE person.

2 real people we have conclusive, 100% positive evidence for. These examples mean nothing.

With Jesus and the pre-Christian deities, you're comparing the story of ONE person (Jesus) to the story of *hundreds* of earlier deities, many of whom have *dozens* of alternate versions of their story.

Yep. So? This proves nothing. This simply proves how widespread these god man attributes were and how long they have been around!! It is common knowledge that early Christians were in fierce competition with other pagan religions in the area. Why wouldn't they want their god to be the bigger and better one? There were a lot of the ancient gods who had SEVERAL of the similarities too. It's not like every ancient deity just had one common thing. Several of them had MOST of the God Man traits. So we have dozens of ancient gods, all of which have at least 1 thing that jesus has, some that had a few of the same traits and several of which that had MANY traits that Jesus has. It seems so obvious to me!!!

"ABIGAIL: Not one source that was written WHILE he was alive.

DAVID: Which is the case with many ancient historical figures.

Such as?? This comparison can only depend on the example you give. Then you must compare all sorts of things about their history, not just whether or not something was written about them in their life time.

"ABIGAIL: What we have are a few mentions (the 3 you have used as evidence) of a Christ who is the God Head of a religion in the area. So? There were Christians preaching in the decades after Jesus' alleged death. So because a few people mentioned this fact, this means Jesus existed?"

DAVID: If they were historians, writing about Jesus as a historical figure, yes. They didn't just write that he was the leader of a religion, but wrote about details of his life, like his having a brother named James and of his being executed by Pilate. These historians clearly believed that He existed, despite their being non-Christians.

So? Look at what Josephus wrote about Jesus? The mention of Jesus doesn't say anything major about him. Why wouldn't Josephus think that some guy names James had a brother names Jesus who was made high priest of a religion? I know of a guy who has a bother names chuck who is the high priest of his coven in Lansing. He must be the Son of God. I mean, because that's obviously proof, right?

One thing I've been asking people is if they can name any fictional character who was written about by even *one* historian as if they believed that character existed within the last century. So far, no one has been able to. Can you?

LOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! You can't even compare the 2!!!!! That makes NO sense. I am not suggesting that the 3 guys who mentioned jesus thought he was fictional. They were writing DECADES, close to 100 years AFTER HIS DEATH! By this time Christians had flourished. These 3 historians were repeating stories. And many times they weren't even stories. They were a couple of lines about a guy named Jesus! Big f**king deal. Why wouldn't they think he existed? Asking for an example of a modern historian who writes about a fictional character as if they are real is seriously the dumbest thing you have mentioned yet. I literally laughed out loud when I read this.

Again, show me one named, historical mention of Jesus from his lifetime and we'll talk. Until then, you might as well drop it. I've been well aware of the Big Three that Christians parade around as being infallible proof for Jesus' existence for years now. I don't buy it anymore than many scholars do. And for the same reasons.

"ABIGAIL:Not one of the 3 sources you gave me were during Jesus' life time. The earliest was like 80 years after he died."

DAVID: You said there weren't any within a hundred years."

MY BAD. I was off by 27 years. This obviously means that Jesus existed!! *rolls eyes* Grow up. 63 years is a f**king long time for a guy who had followers willing to live and die for him. Especially when this mention that came after 63 years tells us nothing.

I gave you three. Now you're acting like 80 years is important. But the earliest one, Josephus, was about sixty years after (93 AD). Keep moving those goalposts and maybe you'll eventually get them where you want them.

Awww, it's cute how you put all your proof on 2 sentences written over 60 years after jesus allegedly died. WOW! I am convinced! TWO SENTENCES! THIS, THIS is your proof. @ sentences written over 60 years after jesus was executed. That mention basically nothing about him or what he did!!! Wow..... alert the presses...Jesus MUST be true!!!! How many years was it until another itsy bitsy mention came along?? And how significant was that mention? How many lines did he get in the next one? Hmmm...

but the same is true for *almost everyone* who lived in ancient times. Think about this - Ancient historians wrote about the deaths of many people, wouldn't you agree? In most cases, these historical records which mention their deaths are all the evidence we have of these people. So for all of these people who were written about historians, we don't have a single source that was written during their lifetimes. So are you seriously going to argue that all of these people whose deaths these historians wrote about, didn't exist? If not, what criteria do you use to determine which of these people existed and which did not? Be consistent.

*yawn* STRAW MAN!!! I am so sick to death of your straw man arguments. Every. Friggin. Paragraph. Straw man after straw man after straw man! Please, can you stop it, just for at least one email? We aren't talking about Lincoln, Kennedy, Napolean, "other historical texts". Okay? Seriously. Try an entire email without resorting to straw man arguments. I dare you.

"ABIGAIL: They are often referred to as the Gnostic Gospels. If not, you really should. Fascinating read in which the authors claim to be other eye witnesses to jesus (Thomas, Mary Magdelaine, etc). Again, just like the New Testament, these are COPIES of the originals. These have been dated as being written in the 4th century."

DAVID: If they were written in the 4th century, then obviously they weren't written by Thomas, Mary, etc., unless those people lived to be VERY old.

*blinks* Ummmm... what?? LOL! Maybe you should re-read what I said.

Basically, if I have to choose between two different versions of the story, one of which was written in the same century as the events and the other was written 300 years later, I'm more likely to trust the versions written in the same century.

Dude. Seriously. Read what I said. THE COPIES that we have date to around the 4th century. Again, they are copies of copies of the originals. The same as the New Testament. The originals date much earlier!

"ABIGAIL: Some dude's wife's name is the same as a VIRGIN BIRTH??? Ummm, okay. So basically you're saying that the virgin birth is completely unimportant and irrelevant to the story."

DAVID: No, I'm saying it's clearly part of the story. Some writers not mentioning that part of the story doesn't change that. Just as some writers not mentioning that the guy's wife's name is "Helen" doesn't mean that her name isn't "Helen".

Yeah, the name of a wife and a virgin birth are obviously equally important. It makes a lot of sense that the vast majority of the gospel authors wouldn't mention the virgin birth. Not an important detail at all. Whatever dude. Whatever makes you sleep easier, right?

"ABIGAIL: The virgin birth is the most significant miracle in the history of the world."

DAVID: Really? You think it's more important than the resurrection? How do you figure that?

Eh, it'd be up there. Both are pretty significant. Take away the virgin birth and you got nothing. If jesus wasn't born of a virgin then he wasn't who he claimed to be. Seemed rather important to me. *shrug* Guess not. It's not MY religion. So if you say the virgin birth isn't important, I will agree. You seem to think it's pretty important when comparing deity parallels though. Funny how that works... it's important when it proves your case but not important when it makes your side look silly. Interesting.

"First, Luke's genealogy was that of Mary."

That's why I said their stories contradict. They contradict because of the other genealogy that comes from Joseph.

"He was telling her version of the story and we know from other sources that Heli was her father. Joseph, being married to Mary, became the son of Heli. Matthew's genealogy was that of Joseph, but fatherhood wasn't simply about biology in those days. He was, in every way but biology, the father of Jesus. When a man married a woman with a child, he became the child's father."

You're missing the point. If a gospel gives the genealogy coming from Joseph... why is this important?? Think...think... I know you can do it... It has to do with Joseph being a descendant of David... Take a shot at it. I'll tell you if you are right or not.

"ABIGAIL: The original idea was obviously to trace Jesus's lineage through Joseph to David to fulfill messianic prophecy. This suggests that the virgin birth part was added later."

DAVID: How so?"

Because a virgin birth would mean that the messianic prophecy hadn't been fulfilled. Okay, the reason they gave these genealogies was to prove Jesus' lineage to David. If Joseph was the line to David then the virgin birth means that Jesus was NOT fulfilling the messianic prophecy. This would have been a BIG OOPS for the author of this gospel. Either they f**ked up royally or the virgin birth was added later messing up the lineage aspect. (Well, this just gave you the answer to my question above. So never mind answering it now.) That's why Luke's genealogy goes through Mary. The virgin birth could be argued to have been originally in Luke. But if it was originally in Matthew then Matt erred big time.

"Okay, so I assume, then, that you don't believe Julius Caesar was assassinated, right? For that, all we have are copies of copies of the original stories, and they don't agree on the details. I hope you'll be consistent and discount Caesar's assassination, too."

If the accounts disagreed on major points like the date and time of the assassination then you might have a point. Besides, you are comparing a totally natural, scientifically possible thing (being murdered) to an unnatural, scientifically impossible thing (being born of a virgin). Again, huge difference. When asking the world to believe in something impossible, details are everything, my friend."

So you only discount the Jesus story because you don't believe in miracles. Why not just say so? Obviously, you don't believe in the virgin birth because you don't believe it's scientifically possible, not because you see apparent discrepancies in the story, right?

Wrong. It is a culmination of everything. The historical lack of evidence for Jesus, the major problems with the texts of the NT (dates, authorship, translations, discrepancies), the fact that Jesus and much of Christianity is basically a rewriting of pagan myths with a nice dose of Jewish patriarchy added in for good measure, the fact that the miracles described are scientifically impossible and want to rewrite the laws of nature, etc. ALL those things add up to me being very skeptical of your religion. Let's not even get into the trouble with the OT and the fact that prayer statistically doesn't work, OR the major paradoxes and illogical conclusions Christianity makes. The entire premise of your religion defies logic. Put it all together and what do you get? A damn good reason to be an atheist!

Why discount it for reasons that, if applied consistently, would force you to discount pretty much every other historical event for which we have multiple attestations? All I'm asking you to do is be consistent.

I'm being very consistent. You want to compare things that cannot be compared as easily as you want to think they can be. Again, to compare any 2 ancient texts you need to compare authorship, dates, translations, reasons for translations, found and known errors, reasons for errors, etc etc. When I see this comparison if I feel that other ancient texts are unreliable I will surely dismiss them.

More importantly, if another ancient text appeared that was made up of copies that date all over the 1st - 4th centuries, and we didn't have any of the originals, and there wasn't any decent historical evidence that what it says actually happened, and it talked about things that defy the laws of nature, and the authors of the manuscripts were anonymous, and there were errors detected within different copies and translations... I would be as consistent as F**K and deny that text too!

"So why get into the "messed up details" at all, if they don't disprove the Jesus story any more than they disprove the story of Caesar's assassination? Why resort to a tactic which clearly doesn't work and, if used consistently, disproves many other things in which you believe? Why not just admit that you don't believe that Jesus' miracles are possible, and that's why you don't believe in the Jesus story?"

Huh? It wouldn't disprove anything else I believe. See the 2 paragraphs I wrote above for reasons as to why.

If my wife and I were to both describe our wedding day to you in detail, I'm sure we'd disagree on many details. For that matter, I'm pretty sure we'd disagree about what time the ceremony took place (it was over 2 decades ago, and I'm not really sure). But let's say that we both told you that, during the ceremony, we levitated off the ground and flew around the church. I'm guessing that you'd have a hard time believing the story, right? But what would be your reason for discounting our story? The inconsistencies? Or the levitation stuff?

Straw man. I won't answer anymore of your straw man arguments.

Actually, let me show you why this exmple is ridiculous first. I don;t want you thinking that you got me with your clever example.

1st of all to make this example more true to form you would need to expand. Let's say that a bunch of people started following you and your wife because of the levitation claims. These people believe in your powers and want to tell the world that you and your wife are magic. The levitation stuff would be what caught my attention. I would want to investigate further into this alleged levitation account. I would look at all the factors. I would look at the witnesses and the available accounts. You stated that the only available accounts where from you and your wife. If this was true I would look deeper into your accounts. The fact that you claim to have levitated would make me skeptical. The fact that you can't even agree on the tiniest of details would be valuable evidence for my skepticism. See?

Okay, NOW I am done with your straw man arguments. They never make any sense in the context of the argument and are a giant waste of my time to sit here and have to show you were your thinking fails.

-Abigail

Abigail,

Sorry it's taking me so long to get back to you, but I'm busy with another project right now (not apologetics-related) and so I'm not able to devote a lot of time to this conversation. I will respond to everything you write if I can, but expect delays.

"Plus, we have already discussed (dear GOD do I get sick of having to repeat myself with you), the proof comes from ancient deities (a good dozen of them) AND from the later Mystery religions. AND... for each ancient deity there are SEVERAL parallels to Jesus. The proof comes from ALL OF THIS. Not from one deity, from ALL."

And as I'm trying to explain, I'm asking for individual pieces of evidence for individual claims. I don't need entire books. For example, if I was trying to give someone evidence for, say, Horus having defeated Seth, I could just give them a line of translated text talking about Horus defeating Seth. I wouldn't have to give them an entire book. In fact, that would be kind of rude if I did.

This is the kind of thing that always happens when I ask people who make claims for this Christ-myther stuff to provide evidence for their claims. They give me excuses and make it sound like I'm asking them to accomplish the impossible. This convinces any rational person that finding evidence for these claims must actually be impossible.

If you don't want to send me any evidence, even though you said earlier that you would, then that's fine. I'll stop asking, so you can stop refusing. Okay?

"*rolls eyes* Semantics. That's not what I meant. For f**k's sake, let me reword: you show on your site that Jesus has many similarities to pre-christian deities. That was my point and you know it."

Your wording was vague there. But, yes, I'll agree that Jesus has many similarities to pre-Christian deities. As does Napoleon.

"Again, you are talking about a real, tangible person that we can prove without a shadow of a doubt existed. Any similarities would be chalked up to "freaky". When comparing 2 mythologies, it becomes obvious that they influenced each other."

So...are you admitting that your hypothesis is based on the *assumption* of Jesus being mythological, and interpreting the evidence in such a way as to fit this assumption? I'm sorry, but I thought Jesus being mythological was the conclusion you came to based on the evidence as you saw it.

"So you admit that you are being purposely intellectually dishonest. I'm glad you agree."

Responding to these lists is intellectually dishonest?

"Again, you are asking me to speak for people that I don't know, have never met, have never read their books, etc. How can I do that? And again you are lumping all of us in with the group of people who do this. It is unfair and dishonest."

Yes, I'm lumping people who claim that Jesus was a mythological figure based on other mythological figures, but refuse to present the evidence to back up their claims, with people who claim that Jesus was a mythological figure based on other mythological figures, but refuse to present the evidence to back up their claims. You really think that's unfair?

"The books I read state that the list of parallels from ancient religions is enough to suggest already that the Christians were highly influenced and borrowing from other religions. Take that and put that with the fact that the Mysteries have even stronger striking parallels, and put those with the historical problems of the bible and Jesus' existence and you have a pretty solid claim for the Christ Myth. It is a multi-faceted theory. "

The only way a theory can be considered to be valid is if the evidence for that theory stands up to debate. But I have yet to find a single Christ-myther who is willing to try to debate the evidence with me. Or anyone. That one guy who said he would still hasn't gotten back to me (I'll let you know if he does, of course).

"Who? Me? I haven't repeated their claims at all. Where have I repeated their claims? Show me one place."

Here are some examples:

"When it's all said and done is becomes glaringly obvious that your god (which came MUCH later) simply followed the same old tired God formula that the rest of them do."

"This is why it is obvious that much of the myth of Jesus is made up of these common God Man features. These features include things like - being born of a God, communion, resurrection, being a savior, performing miracles, being killed (crucifixtion specifically is not important here as it is to be expected that the Gods would be killed in ways familiar to the societies they sprang from), virgin birth."

"Take that and put that with the fact that the Mysteries have even stronger striking parallels, and put those with the historical problems of the bible and Jesus' existence and you have a pretty solid claim for the Christ Myth."

"Nor have I refused to show evidence."

Do I need to type examples of you refusing to show the evidence, also? Okay, here goes:

"You want me to go through every page of each of these sources, find just the parts that are specifically related to what YOU want to know and type all that out. I won't do it."

"So me giving you the evidence will be pointless. You will never read it and then tell everyone that I don't have evidence because I refused to retype it from books that I own"

"The fact that I wont retype out books for you or spend my own money on your education does NOT mean that I refuse to provide evidence."

True. But the fact that you refuse to provide evidence *does* mean that you refuse to provide evidence. Let's face it, you won't provide the evidence to me because you know that the evidence either doesn't exist or won't stand up to scrutiny.

"The fact that you refuse to read proves, without a shadow of a doubt, that you desperately fear being proved wrong and that you will do whatever avoidance technique available to you to be sure you don't have to see the evidence that goes against your faith."

Are you forgetting that I'm offering $1000 for that evidence? Why would I offer $1000 for evidence against my faith if I desperately fear being proved wrong and don't want to see evidence against my faith? Care to explain that one?

I'll tell you why I'm offering it. I already know that the evidence does not exist. If it did, the people who are proponents of this theory would be sharing that evidence with the world. They'd *want* people to see it. Simple logic tells me that. By offering the $1000, I'm getting the very people who (through blind faith) believe that this evidence really exists, to actually start to look for it, so that they can see for themselves that there is no evidence to be found. I've already had about a dozen people either send me e-mails or respond on message boards that they would find the evidence and win the $1000. I never heard back from *any* of them. If the evidence was really available, wouldn't they have found it? I'm guessing that all of these people have figured out for themselves that the evidence doesn't exist.

"2 real people we have conclusive, 100% positive evidence for. These examples mean nothing."

Ummm...they prove that two stories can have parallels between them without it being a case of one story borrowing details from the other.

"So we have dozens of ancient gods, all of which have at least 1 thing that jesus has, some that had a few of the same traits and several of which that had MANY traits that Jesus has. It seems so obvious to me!!!"

And with hundreds of ancient gods to pick and choose from, being able to find a handful of similarities is pretty much a no-brainer. That's why it was so easy to do the same for Napoleon. I also saw an article showing similarities between the Toronto Maple Leafs hockey team and Egyptian deities (it's at the bottom of this page - http://www.tektonics.org/harpur01.html ) You can find parallels like this with for just about anything and anyone, considering how big a pool of ancient deities there are.

"That's your opinion. Many of us, many scholars especially, see a great deal of evidence for borrowing when a later mythology takes the form of common mythological themes from the past. "

And you're pretty clearly starting with the assumption of Jesus being mythological and simply interpreting the evidence in a way which supports your assumption.

"ABIGAIL:"Not one source that was written WHILE he was alive."

DAVID:Which is the case with many ancient historical figures.

ABIGAIL: Such as?? This comparison can only depend on the example you give. Then you must compare all sorts of things about their history, not just whether or not something was written about them in their life time."

Such as Confucious, Leif Eriksson, Homer, Pythagorus, Laozi, Herodotus. And as I mentioned earlier, many ancient historians wrote about people who died and were the only ones to write about those particular individuals. In those cases, we have no sources for those individuals written while they were alive, right?

"So? Look at what Josephus wrote about Jesus. The mention of Jesus doesn't say anything major about him. Why wouldn't Josephus think that some guy names James had a brother names Jesus who was made high priest of a religion?"

He wasn't just the high priest of a religion, but was considered the Christ, according to Josephus. In fact, Jesus is the only person Josephus ever refers to as any sort of "Christ", though he clearly isn't agreeing that He actually is, just saying he's called such. And since Josephus was Jewish, this wouldn't have been a small deal to him.

"LOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! You can't even compare the 2!!!!! That makes NO sense. I am not suggesting that the 3 guys who mentioned jesus thought he was fictional."

No, you're suggesting that these three historians were tricked into thinking Jesus was real, and lived in the last hundred years, even though He wasn't real. But that's the kind of thing that's never happened even *once* to even *one* historian. Yet somehow you expect people to believe it happened *three times* in this case. This is so irrational that I have to ask what causes you to believe it happened here. Your belief that all three of these historians were such dupes as to fall for this myth is clearly a case of you interpreting the evidence to fit your beliefs, not in your going where the evidence points. To those who are going where the evidence points, they'd see this strong historical evidence as pointing towards the fact that Jesus was a person who existed.

"They were writing DECADES, close to 100 years AFTER HIS DEATH! By this time Christians had flourished. These 3 historians were repeating stories. And many times they weren't even stories. They were a couple of lines about a guy named Jesus! Big f**king deal. Why wouldn't they think he existed?"

Because historians who aren't members of a given religion tend not to repeat the fables of those religions as if they are historical fact. They repeat *historical fact* as if it's historical fact, though.

"Asking for an example of a modern historian who writes about a fictional character as if they are real is seriously the dumbest thing you have mentioned yet."

My wording was probably unclear. If so, I apologize. I'm not asking for historians from within the last 100 years who have done this, but for any historians ever who repeated such stories as if they'd happened within the last 100 years before their time (like a historian from 150 AD who said that the person lived between 50-150 AD).

"Again, show me one named, historical mention of Jesus from his lifetime and we'll talk"

There aren't any, same as with many other historical figures. Do you believe that those historical figures never existed, either?

"MY BAD. I was off by 27 years."

37.

"This obviously means that Jesus existed!!"

No, it obviously means that your criteria is pretty arbitrary. You set goalposts, and if someone meets the criteria you've set, you just move the goalposts somewhere else. But, yes, a historian writing about someone as if they existed is very good evidence that the person existed. Three historians writing about someone as if they existed is pretty much airtight.

"DAVID: So are you seriously going to argue that all of these people whose deaths these historians wrote about, didn't exist? If not, what criteria do you use to determine which of these people existed and which did not? Be consistent.

ABIGAIL: *yawn* STRAW MAN!!! I am so sick to death of your straw man arguments. Every. Friggin. Paragraph."

How is asking you to tell me what criteria you use a straw man argument?

"ABIGAIL: They are often referred to as the Gnostic Gospels. If not, you really should. Fascinating read in which the authors claim to be other eye witnesses to jesus (Thomas, Mary Magdelaine, etc). Again, just like the New Testament, these are COPIES of the originals. These have been dated as being written in the 4th century."

DAVID: If they were written in the 4th century, then obviously they weren't written by Thomas, Mary, etc., unless those people lived to be VERY old.

"ABIGAIL: Dude. Seriously. Read what I said. THE COPIES that we have date to around the 4th century"

What you said was that they were written in the 4th century. I take your response to mean that you meant to say they were *copied* in the 4th century, right?

"So if you say the virgin birth isn't important, I will agree. You seem to think it's pretty important when comparing deity parallels though. Funny how that works... it's important when it proves your case but not important when it makes your side look silly. Interesting."

Again, my website is simply responding to the lists that Christ-mythers pass around the internet. It's not saying that such-and-such supposed parallel is important and that the other is not.

"That's why I said their stories contradict. They contradict because of the other genealogy that comes from Joseph."

Since Mary and Joseph aren't the same person, of course they don't have the same genealogy.

"You're missing the point. If a gospel gives the genealogy coming from Joseph... why is this important?? Think...think... I know you can do it... It has to do with Joseph being a descendant of David... Take a shot at it. I'll tell you if you are right or not."

You mean Jesus needing to be a descendant of David? He was. He was a legal descendent through Joseph, and a biological descendant through Mary (who was also descended from David).

"If Joseph was the line to David then the virgin birth means that Jesus was NOT fulfilling the messianic prophecy."

As I believe I said in the last letter, fatherhood wasn't simply about biology in those days. And if it was, Mary was also descended from David.

"That's why Luke's genealogy goes through Mary. The virgin birth could be argued to have been originally in Luke. But if it was originally in Matthew then Matt erred big time."

Or was simply telling the story as it happened. Your arguments seem to be assuming that the birth narratives were fabricated. *If* it happened, then Jesus was descended from David through Mary (and arguably through Joseph as well, though just not biologically). Even if Matthew completely screwed up, that doesn't change any facts. If I accidentally wrote that my mother was an elephant, that doesn't magically make her into an elephant. Matthew didn't err by simply telling things as they happened, since his writing about the events (even if, hypothetically, faulty) doesn't change the facts of the events themselves.

Another important thing to keep in mind when discussing the fact that there are only two versions of the "virgin birth" story is the fact that there were only two witnesses to those events - Mary and Joseph. Besides them, no one else was in a position to know whether those events really happened or not. Obviously, they told other people about it, but those people could only believe or disbelieve that Mary and Joseph said. They couldn't know. They weren't witnesses.

Apparently, Luke is relating Mary's version of the story, probably having gotten it from her directly. Matthew is relating Joseph's version of the story, though his source is unclear. It's probably not Joseph himself, since Joseph appears to have died before Matthew met Jesus (the Bible doesn't say so, but his absence from the time of Jesus' ministry suggests it). My guess is he got it from someone in Joseph's family. So if Mark of John did relay the stories of the virgin birth, where would they have gotten them from? They'd either have to have gotten them from the other Gospels (no reason they couldn't have, but two versions of the same story ultimately equal one story - this wouldn't be additional proof for the story), from Mary directly (which Luke already covered), or from someone Joseph told (which Matthew already covered). In other words, they'd just be re-telling a story that was already told. It wouldn't make the truth of the story any more likely than if they hadn't told it.

"Wrong. It is a culmination of everything. The historical lack of evidence for Jesus,"

Fifty people, including non-Christian historians, writing over 1000 pages of text within 150 years of Jesus' time is hardly a lack of evidence. That's more evidence than we have for practically anyone from ancient times.

"the major problems with the texts of the NT (dates, authorship, translations, discrepancies),"

Which, if we're calling them "major problems", would mean that we have "major problems" with all ancient texts, even though we don't.

"the fact that Jesus and much of Christianity is basically a rewriting of pagan myths with a nice dose of Jewish patriarchy added in for good measure,"

Which no proponent is brave enough to debate the evidence for.

"the fact that the miracles described are scientifically impossible and want to rewrite the laws of nature, etc."

Which is an opinion you have, and the only thing I've seen so far that gives you just cause to doubt the Gospel stories. But they don't give you cause to doubt the existence of Jesus, since the existence of Jesus itself isn't scientifically impossible and doesn't rewrite the laws of nature. Anyone who believes that miracles are impossible would be quite justified in believing that Jesus was simply a man who lived, preached and was crucified and for whom miraculous details were later added by overzealous followers. I would fully understand such a position, though respectfully disagree. But saying Jesus didn't exist *at all* is 100% in contradiction of the evidence. Anyone who believes it is not going where the evidence points, but is, at best, interpreting the evidence to fit their theory.

"Put it all together and what do you get? A damn good reason to be an atheist!"

But no reason at all to believe that Jesus never existed. A rational atheist following the evidence would conclude that Jesus existed, but was not a miracle worker.

Peace,

David

"ABIGAIL: The 1st 5 books of the OT were (allegedly) written by Moses. They are the divinely inspired words of God. I am surprised that you don't know this."

DAVID: Allegedly, yes. And I do believe that he wrote most of the Pentateuch. But like many people, I have my doubts that he wrote the beginning of Genesis and the end of Deuteronomy."

Just like allegedly the NT was written by Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. You having YOUR doubts that the OT isn't what it claims to be means that you know that the bible is not the infallible word of God. Again, this means when you use it is evidence you are picking and choosing, according to your own criteria, which parts of this book are valid. Hypocrite. So basically, the people who put the book together were to be trusted in the areas you think are good enough but not to trusted in areas that you think are not good enough. Hypocrite. Either the bible is what it claims to be or it isn't. Your wishy washy back and forth isn't cutting it anymore. And this proves that even you know the bible isn't the infallible word of god.

"That would be true only if science were all there was, which I don't believe is the case. Saying that these things are not scientifically possible is like saying that me jumping upwards is not gravitationally possible."

Ummm, jumping upwards IS gravitationally possible. Duhhhh. You don't know much about gravity, eh? When you jump up into the air your energy causes you to lift slightly into the air, but gravity causes you to come back down. Laws of gravity. They'll win every time. Rising from the dead IS scientifically impossible. So is walking on water. These things break the laws of nature. Jumping upwards do NOT break the laws of nature. The laws of gravity explain why jumping upwards is possible. This is your worst comparison yet. Seriously, they keep getting worse and more flimsy. You reject certain things because science has proven them impossible but other things that science has also ruled as impossible you claim to be true. You pick and chose these things based on whether or not they are crucial to your beliefs. Once again, you start with your belief and manipulate and arrange the evidence to explain them. Whereas I start with the evidence and arrange my beliefs to fir them.

"ABIGAIL:The details that are not crucial to your belief you easily dismiss as mythology."

DAVID:You might want to re-read my letter again, since I explain why I dismiss some stories as likely being mythology. It has to do with the relationship of the writer to the events.

And each of these dismissals are things you deem "unnecessary" to uphold your belief in Jesus. Hypocrite. Jesus himself believed in those earlier books of the bible. He studied them, taught them, preached them. His disciples did as well. So Jesus must have been a liar then. Obviously. Or he wasn't as wise as you are David being able to be the ultimate authority on which books of the bible are true and which ones aren't. Pretty pathetic for the alleged son of God.

"ABIGAIL: This is great! Now do this exact same thing with rising from the dead, being born of a virgin, walking on water, etc."

DAVID: Sure. Since I believe that those stories were written by people relatively close to the events, I believe that it's very unlikely that those stories could be allegorical."

This is not the same thing you did in your previous example. You specifically stated in your previous example that you began with the scientific facts. You then dismissed parts of the bible based on those scientific facts. Well, don't stop at the NT. By all means, keep going. Again, hypocrite.

"Again, I don't believe that science is all there is."

But science is really all you need when deciding on whether or not the OT is true or not. You said that you decided that certain stories were allegories. You gave me 2 examples: creation and Jonah and the whale. Your reasons for thinking they are allegories is because they are scientifically impossible. Certainly no one can live inside the body of a whale! Yours words, not mine. So you base your views on the OT stories directly on science. If you have other reasons for thinking that they are allegories, please tell me. Otherwise...you look like a hypocrite.

"And as I pointed out in my letter, my criteria for determining what is historical and what is allegorical involves the author's relationship to the events, not whether the story involves "miracles" or not. That's what I was trying to explain with the Jonah example. I'm sorry if I was unclear about that."

So the author being directly told this stuff by God isn't a good enough relationship? But the words that were copied from copies from copies from original sources that were written decades after the events about a guy who did things that go directly against the laws of nature is good enough for you. Gotcha.

"ABIGAIL: Terrible example. In one my friend is using a commonly used phrased that means something else, and in the other she is using the literal version. Super easy to differentiate. Plus, I know my friend. So if she was saying something that I couldn't interpret as true or allegorical I could just ask. But if I assumed everything that didn't make sense to me was just an allegory I would be erroneous in my way of approaching things. That's what you are doing."

DAVID: How do you figure that? As with this example, I have logical criteria for determining what is literal and what is allegorical, and it has nothing to do with whether the story is "scientifically possible" or not."

I already told you how I figure it's a terrible example. You are comparing the words of a friend I have who is suing common words in ways that are common to our times. This is another ridiculous straw man that is completely incomparable to the issues at hand. Stay on topic, please. I won't waste another minute deciphering through your bizarre straw man arguments.

"DAVID:: Not really. Can you give me an example of where I do that?

ABIGAIL: You're joking, right? When discussing the historical Jesus you use the bible as evidence every single time. As a matter of fact, the bible is the bulk of your evidence for this."

DAVID: I'm sorry. I meant, can you give me an example of where I use the Bible as evidence *against other people's beliefs*?

Yes. It is my belief that Jesus was a myth. It is my belief that he is made up of God Man attributes that have existed for centuries. It is my belief that the NT is an unreliable source for knowing what may or may not have really happened. You have used the bible as evidence against every single one of these beliefs. Interpreting the bible as you see fit is hypocritical if you are to use the bible as a literal example of evidence. Not only is it hypocritical but it described in the NT as something believers CAN NOT DO.

"Just like allegedly the NT was written by Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. You having YOUR doubts that the OT isn't what it claims to be means that you know that the bible is not the infallible word of God."

First of all, the Bible doesn't say that Moses wrote the entire Pentateuch, so if he didn't, that doesn't make the bible fallible. It just makes those who think Moses wrote the entire Pentateuch fallible. The *evidence* suggests that Moses probably didn't write the entire thing, since the book of Deuteronomy describes Moses' death. But for Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, there is no compelling evidence that they didn't write those books.

And second, I don't believe that the bible was written by God. I believe that the books themselves were written by humans.

"Again, this means when you use it is evidence you are picking and choosing, according to your own criteria, which parts of this book are valid. Hypocrite."

Going where the evidence points isn't "picking and choosing". If a writing is consistently ascribed to a given author, I will believe that the author probably wrote the text, unless there is evidence that he didn't. I apply that to the OT texts and the NT texts.

"Either the bible is what it claims to be or it isn't."

Where does the Bible say that *everything* in it was written by God?

"Ummm, jumping upwards IS gravitationally possible. Duhhhh."

I know. Wow, did you really completely miss my point there? If I was saying that jumping upwards is impossible, then my analogy wouldn't have made any sense.

"When you jump up into the air your energy causes you to lift slightly into the air, but gravity causes you to come back down"

Obviously you did miss my point, then. Maybe I just didn't explain it well enough, so I'll try a different approach.

You acknowledge that I believe in God, right? And that God, per my beliefs, created the universe and thus created all of the scientific laws that the universe runs by? If God created those laws, then He wouldn't be bound by them. Especially since those laws only govern that which is natural, and God is not a natural being. If He created all of the matter and energy in the universe, He would be able to manipulate that matter and energy in a way that us natural beings, being bound by these laws, could not. His doing so would not be impossible.

Obviously, for those who believe that there is no God, then God could not perform miracles, since non-existent beings can't do anything. So for an atheist, I can understand why they believe that miracles cannot happen. But for those of us who believe in God, there's nothing impossible about miracles, if God is the one behind them.

"Once again, you start with your belief and manipulate and arrange the evidence to explain them."

No. I go where the evidence points.

"Whereas I start with the evidence and arrange my beliefs to fit them. "

You shouldn't arrange your beliefs to fit the evidence. If the evidence goes against your beliefs, as it does with your belief that Jesus never existed, then you should drop those beliefs altogether, not try to find a way to make them fit.

"And each of these dismissals are things you deem "unnecessary" to uphold your belief in Jesus. Hypocrite."

Huh? Care to explain that one, because I'm reading it over and over and can't make sense out of it.

"Jesus himself believed in those earlier books of the bible. He studied them, taught them, preached them."

And where does it say that He held them to be literal instead of allegorical? Jesus frequently used parables to make his points, such as with the story of the Good Samaritan or the Sower of Seeds. Obviously, Jesus wasn't opposed to using allegory in His teachings.

"This is not the same thing you did in your previous example. You specifically stated in your previous example that you began with the scientific facts. You then dismissed parts of the bible based on those scientific facts. Well, don't stop at the NT. By all means, keep going. Again, hypocrite."

You seem to be assuming that, even though I am a Christian, I believe miracles are scientifically impossible. I don't, and never said I did with any of the examples I gave. I'm not aware of any Christian who believes that miracles are impossible.

"But science is really all you need when deciding on whether or not the OT is true or not."

I disagree, and think it's narrow-minded to use only one criteria.

"You said that you decided that certain stories were allegories. You gave me 2 examples: creation and Jonah and the whale. Your reasons for thinking they are allegories is because they are scientifically impossible"

I did not, so don't put words into my mouth. I said Adam and Eve is allegory because the universe is billions of years old, not just thousands as a literal reading of the story would suggest. And I said Jonah is allegory because of the relationship between the writer and the events, not because it contains any scientific impossibilities.

"Your reasons for thinking they are allegories is because they are scientifically impossible. Certainly no one can live inside the body of a whale! Yours words, not mine."

Not mine, either. I said no such thing. Don't put words into my mouth.

"If you have other reasons for thinking that they are allegories, please tell me. Otherwise...you look like a hypocrite."

I already gave you my reasons. It has primarily to do with the relationship between the author and the events. You ignored that and pretended my reasons had to do with whether or not the stories contained miracles.

"Yes. It is my belief that Jesus was a myth. It is my belief that he is made up of God Man attributes that have existed for centuries. It is my belief that the NT is an unreliable source for knowing what may or may not have really happened. You have used the bible as evidence against every single one of these beliefs."

I see. So, basically, if you set out to attack my beliefs, and I try to defend my beliefs, then this equals attacking yours?

"So the author being directly told this stuff by God isn't a good enough relationship?"

Where in the Bible does it say the author was directly told this stuff by God?

"Interpreting the bible as you see fit is hypocritical if you are to use the bible as a literal example of evidence. Not only is it hypocritical but it described in the NT as something believers CAN NOT DO."

You're acting like I'm doing it arbitrarily. I'm using specific criteria which I've laid out for you when deciding what is literal and what might be allegorical, but you seem to be ignoring that and claiming that I believe miracles are possible in some Biblical stories and impossible in others, when I clearly believe no such thing. I can't see why you're trying so hard to ignore my criteria and pretend it's something else. It almost sounds like you're pretending to argue against someone else, not against me.

David

Here is the beginning of my list of sources for proof on why I believe the things I have stated. I don’t believe in the Christian God for a number of reasons starting with the fact that there's a ton of scientific data to back-up the assertions that life could have spontaneously appeared on earth and we know for a fact that life has evolved independent of any "God" over the course of billions of years based on the fossil record and DNA studies.

And we know that there is little, credible historical evidence to support the existence of Jesus and there is plenty of historical evidence of other ancient religions that existed prior to Christianity, and Mystery religions that existed around the same time as Christianity, (Osiris, Dionysius, Mithras) that have marked similarities to the story of Jesus, which indicates that Jesus was simply another version of an old myth.

And we know that many of the claims made in the Bible are untrue, like Adam & Eve, Noah's ark, Jonah & the whale, walking on water, healing the blind, rising from the dead, being born of a virgin, etc. We know they are parables because they can easily be shown to be scientifically impossible. Therefore, we know that the Bible cannot possibly be the inerrant "Word of God," but rather a collection of mythology, and since we know from anthropological study that mythology is simply stories created to explain things that science has not yet explained, we can disregard the Bible as a work of fiction.

I could go on, but you get the idea - there is very little evidence to support the Christian position, and as we continue to perform scientific research there is more and more evidence to support the atheist position. But ultimately, it comes back to the burden of proof being on Christians, not on atheists. You're the ones making incredible claims about a supernatural being that walked this earth performing religions in order to save our souls from eternal damnation and our sinful nature that was caused by a talking snake tricking Adam and Eve thousands of years ago. You're the ones talking about virgin births and holy spirits. Where is your evidence for any of this? Sure, I can't ABSOLUTELY disprove your God anymore than I could disprove Zeus or Ra. But it's not my responsibility to prove those things DON'T exist. I also can't prove that there isn't a colony of dancing crocodiles on Saturn - but that doesn't mean I should believe such things! It's intellectual dishonesty to believe in things for which there is little or no evidence.

So here is the beginning. To start I am going to paste an article here that does a GREAT job explaining all the things I have already stated about why I don’t believe in a real Jesus. This article goes over a lot of what I already stated but also brings up a few new points. I copied this article off of a website last year. I often do that when I find really good article just in case the link stops working or the article gets removed. Well, the link I had for this article stopped working a long time ago. So I don’t have the website that I got it from anymore. It doesn’t matter though. I will list sources that have given me the evidence needed to believe in the arguments made in this essay. The author of this article is somebody named Jim Walker. I did edit out parts of this essay that were irrelevant to our discussion (like on the shroud of turin, etc). Some of the sources he lists for this article I have actually read, others I have not. But that doesn’t really matter as the sources I will list after this article provides the evidence to support what this author states. So I did not edit any of the quotes or sources from this article. I really just want the ideas in this article to get across. That’s my main point with it, just to reiterate what my arguments have been for the “Jesus never existed argument”. Please read it. This article is the culmination of why I don’t believe in Jesus based on the evidence we have. At the end of the article I will list my resources for the claims made within this article.

http://www.nobeliefs.com/exist.htm

Here are my personal sources that provide the evidence for the claims I have personally made and have related to you by way of this article. These sources cover it.

Burton L. Mack, Who Wrote the New Testament?: The Making of the Christian Myth –This book contains a very thorough bibliography of both modern and ancient works.

Mack is a writer and John Wesley Professor in early Christianity at the Claremont School of Theology in Claremont, California. He is also active at the Institute for Antiquity and Christianity.

Bruce Metzger, The Canon of the New testament: It's Origin, Development and Significant.

Bruce Metzger, The Text of the New Testament-- Its Transmission, Corruption, and Restoration, Oxford University Press, 1968

Metzger was a professor at Princeton Theological Seminary and Bible editor who served on the board of the American Bible Society. He was a scholar of Greek, New Testament and Old Testament, and wrote prolifically on these subjects.

Elaine Pagels, The Gnostic Gospels, Vintage Books, New York, 1979

Pagels is the Harrington Spear Paine Professor of Religion at Princeton University. The recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship, she is best known for her studies and writing on the Gnostic Gospels.

Bart D. Ehrman, The Orthodox Corruption of Scripture: The Effect of Early Christological Controversies on the Text of the New Testament

Bart D. Ehrman, The New Testament: A Historical Introduction.

Bart D. Ehrman, Misquoting Jesus

Bart D. Ehrman - is an American New Testament scholar and textual critic of early Christianity. He is the James A. Gray Distinguished Professor and Chair of the Department of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Ehrman began studying the Bible and its original languages at the Moody Bible Institute and is a 1978 graduate of Wheaton College in Illinois. He received his Ph.D and M.Div from Princeton Theological Seminary. He was the President of the Southeast Region of the Society of Biblical Literature, and worked closely as an editor on a number of the Society's publications. As a textual critic, Ehrman examines various versions of a text in order to determine what the text originally said.

Robert M. Price, Deconstructing Jesus, Prometheus Books, 2000

Did Jesus Christ Really Live? By Marshall J. Gauvin: http://www.infidels.org/library/historical/marshall_gauvin/did_jesus_really_live.html

George Albert Wells, Did Jesus Exist? (Prometheus Books, 1975; second edition 1986)

George Albert Wells, The Historical Evidence for Jesus (Prometheus Books, 1982)

Wells, usually known as G. A. Wells, is an Emeritus Professor of German at Birkbeck, University of London. He is a former Chairman of the Rationalist Press Association. He studied at the University of London and Bern, and holds degrees in German, philosophy, and natural science.

There are definitely more. But this should give you a very good handle on the evidence for the stuff I have stated in our debate on this topic. Have fun. Oh, and the ones I put in bold letters are the ones that I highly recommend you read. The sources list for the other 2 parts of the Christ Myth theory (the pagan parallels from ancient religions and from Mystery religions) will come tomorrow. I am exhausted and need sleep badly!!!

Oh, one more thing. Don’t bother going through this article and giving your thoughts on each paragraph the way you do with my emails. I am really not interested in your interpretation of the evidence. At this point I am only interested in hard evidence that might go against the claims I have made and that are made in this article. I am no longer interested in opinions, assumptions or straw man arguments on the subject. I will only deal in scholarly evidence from here on out. If you have some, please send it my way. If not, we can move on to parts 2 and 3.

"I don’t believe in the Christian God for a number of reasons starting with the fact that there's a ton of scientific data to back-up the assertions that life could have spontaneously appeared on earth and we know for a fact that life has evolved independent of any "God" over the course of billions of years based on the fossil record and DNA studies."

So we live in a universe in which life is not only possible, but apparently inevitable, and can be sustained long enough to last for billions of years without being swallowed up by chaos - and you think that such a universe came to be accidentally? This just about the best evidence I can think of for the existence of an intelligent creator. If something clearly began to exist (as our universe did) and shows such complexity as to appear purposeful, I have a hard time believing it came to be accidentally. That would be like showing me a painting of the Eiffel Tower and trying to convince me it was created by an explosion in a paint factory rather than painted by an artist.

"And we know that there is little, credible historical evidence to support the existence of Jesus"

Other than over 1,000 pages of text by about 50 different authors, including at least three non-Christian historians, from within 150 years of His time.

"and there is plenty of historical evidence of other ancient religions that existed prior to Christianity, and Mystery religions that existed around the same time as Christianity, (Osiris, Dionysius, Mithras) that have marked similarities to the story of Jesus, which indicates that Jesus was simply another version of an old myth."

Yet most of the claims that Christ-mythers argue show the parallels have been shown to be fabricated.

"And we know that many of the claims made in the Bible are untrue, like Adam & Eve, Noah's ark, Jonah & the whale, walking on water, healing the blind, rising from the dead, being born of a virgin, etc. We know they are parables because they can easily be shown to be scientifically impossible."

Only if you assume God does not exist, or that God is somehow incapable of acting in miraculous ways.

"You're the ones making incredible claims about a supernatural being that walked this earth performing religions in order to save our souls from eternal damnation and our sinful nature that was caused by a talking snake tricking Adam and Eve thousands of years ago. You're the ones talking about virgin births and holy spirits. Where is your evidence for any of this? Sure, I can't ABSOLUTELY disprove your God anymore than I could disprove Zeus or Ra. But it's not my responsibility to prove those things DON'T exist. I also can't prove that there isn't a colony of dancing crocodiles on Saturn - but that doesn't mean I should believe such things! It's intellectual dishonesty to believe in things for which there is little or no evidence."

Yet you have no problem believing that Jesus didn't exist, a position for which there is little or no evidence.

"So here is the beginning. To start I am going to paste an article here that does a GREAT job explaining all the things I have already stated about why I don’t believe in a real Jesus"

Jim Walker's text? Love it! I responded to that one YEARS ago on my site:

http://www.kingdavid8.com/YesJesusExisted.html

David

I was thinking about something last night after I sent my response to your email. You have repeatedly accused me and other skeptics as being biased when we look at proof for Jesus' existence. You think that we ignore the facts in order to make Jesus a fictional character so we're able to uphold our beliefs. You have eluded to this several times. You say that Jesus being fictional aligns with my beliefs so I manipulate the evidence to make him so. There's a pretty easy test to see if this is true or not. Look at how me and other skeptics approach the REST of our beliefs.

I do not doubt for a second that there was a real, tangible Muhammed, Buddha, Joseph Smith, Zoroaster or L. Ron Hubbard. And I still don't feel it necessary to believe in the religions they started. Weird, right? Skeptics, atheists, historians and scholars world wide accept the proof for these individual's existence. And yet we are still totally comfortable rejecting their religions. So obviously we don't NEED Jesus to be fictional to still think that Christianity is bulls**t.

Now why would I and skeptics around the world need to treat Jesus any differently than Muhammed or Joseph Smith? We don't. We don't treat Jesus any differently than Muhammed, Dionysus, Shiva, Hercules, Joseph Smith or Satan.

-Abigail

"I do not doubt for a second that there was a real, tangible Muhammed, Buddha, Joseph Smith, Zoroaster or L. Ron Hubbard. And I still don't feel it necessary to believe in the religions they started. Weird, right?"

Good point. You can still accept the mounds of historical evidence for Jesus, and realize the fact that there is no evidence that He was purely mythical, without being a Christian. So why don't you?

"Skeptics, atheists, historians and scholars world wide accept the proof for these individual's existence. And yet we are still totally comfortable rejecting their religions. So obviously we don't NEED Jesus to be fictional to still think that Christianity is bulls**t"

Good. So now consider the fact that pretty much everyone would take the three non-Christian historians who mentioned Jesus as being a figure from recent history, as evidence that Jesus most likely existed. You don't have to accept the miracles of course, since none of those three mentioned them. But that Jesus was a preacher who lived and was executed shouldn't really be in any doubt if you're simply going where the secular evidence points. I understand, since you don't believe in miracles, why you would reject the "miracle worker" aspect, but even so, that still leaves the idea that Jesus was some sort of preacher who lived, had followers, and ended up being executed by Pilate. Since the evidence clearly supports at least *that much* being true, then why do you have such a hard time believing it's true?

"Now why would I and skeptics around the world need to treat Jesus any differently than Muhammed or Joseph Smith?"

Most skeptics agree that Jesus existed. But for why some don't, that's what I'm trying to figure out, why they treat Jesus differently than other clearly-historical characters. Most people, when they see that three historians wrote about a person as a figure from recent history, conclude that the person probably existed. Why do some people hold the evidence for Jesus to such high standards, while being gullible enough to accept any claims for there being evidence that He didn't exist, without ever having seen that evidence for themselves?

The evidence clearly favors those historical characters having existed, just as it clearly favors Jesus having existed. In fact, I'm still puzzled about your arguments about the Gospels being third- or fourth-hand sources. Even if, hypothetically, they were handed-down stories about Jesus, how is this evidence that Jesus didn't exist at all? Even if the "copies of copies" were seriously altered from what the original authors wrote, how is this evidence that Jesus didn't exist in the first place? Even if the details got muddled over time, how does that suggest that the person they were about was entirely fictional? None of it actually points to the lack of a historical base for the stories.

David

This response from you is astounding. It is proof that you pick and choose which parts of the bible are real and which are not. Your reasons for doing so run from relationships between alleged authors and the events, to scientific proof, to that's what tradition states. All of this proves that you are a big fat hypocrite and pick and chose which parts of the bible are true based on your ever changing, arbitrary rules. Pathetic. You are a joke. This shows me, and the rest of the world, that you know the bible is a nothing but a work of unbelievable fiction and that you have to create scenarios and personal criterion to make it all fit into your chosen belief system. Whatever. I can't take you seriously anymore. You blew it big time with this response.

You believe some things are fictional because of your personal reasons but believe others such as God creating the universe and therefore being able to bend and manipulate natural law. You believe this, which is stated in Genesis, along side the rest of the creation myth. But you dismiss the rest of the creation myth as allegorical because it can be proven wrong by science. So you take 1 story (the creation myth) and believe parts and dismiss other parts according to your personal whims. HYPOCRTICAL! This is also specifically stated as being a big no-no in the New Testament.

"First of all, the Bible doesn't say that Moses wrote the entire Pentateuch, so if he didn't, that doesn't make the bible fallible. It just makes those who think Moses wrote the entire Pentateuch fallible. The *evidence* suggests that Moses probably didn't write the entire thing, since the book of Deuteronomy describes Moses' death."

LOL!! Where do you come up with this s**t? I'll tell you what? We can discuss the bible as soon as you f**king read it. The Pentateuch is an anonymous work - Just like the Gospels are. The Books do, however, give indications of Moses as its writer:

He was ordered to write historical facts (Ex 17:14; Num 33:1-2), laws (Ex 24:4, 7; 34:27ff) and one poem (Deut 31:9, 22).

Moses is affirmed as author in the rest of the OT: (Joshua 1:7-8; 8:32, 34; 22:5; 1 Ki 2:3; 2 Ki 14:6; 21:8; Ezra 6:18; Dan 9:11-13; Mal 4:4.

The NT ALSO referred to Moses as the author of the Pentateuch (Matt 19:18; Mark 12:26; Luke 2:22; 16:29; 24:27; John 5:46-47; 7:19; Acts 13:39; Rom 10:5) Moses is testified to be the author of the whole Pentateuch in a unanimous way in the Talmud and by the Church Fathers!

"But for Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, there is no compelling evidence that they didn't write those books."

More like there is no evidence that they DID write those books. A lack of hard evidence is an absolutely perfect reason to not believe it.

You acknowledge that I believe in God, right? And that God, per my beliefs, created the universe and thus created all of the scientific laws that the universe runs by? If God created those laws, then He wouldn't be bound by them. Especially since those laws only govern that which is natural, and God is not a natural being. If He created all of the matter and energy in the universe, He would be able to manipulate that matter and energy in a way that us natural beings, being bound by these laws, could not. His doing so would not be impossible.

.......ummmm...okaaaay. How can I f**king argue with this nonsense? This is insanity. Pure, fantasy. How could i possibly argue with your made up, fantastic, dream-like scenario? You have completely hit rock bottom. You have entered into la-la land and I refuse to follow you there. This is asinine. I prefer to stay firmly in reality.

"ABIGAIL: Once again, you start with your belief and manipulate and arrange the evidence to explain them."

DAVID:No. I go where the evidence points."

And your criteria for evidence and standards changes throughout. Sometimes you go by authors relationships, sometime you go by scientific proof, sometimes you go by tradition. All of it though corresponds with your beliefs. Hence, you allow your belief to dictate your criteria. You make it up as you go along. You have proven that 100% with this response.

"You shouldn't arrange your beliefs to fit the evidence."

Why not? it is the smart thing to do after all. Especially if you want your beliefs to be valid.

"If the evidence goes against your beliefs, as it does with your belief that Jesus never existed"

Wrong. And I have proven this without a doubt. You haven't handed me any evidence to against the proof I have given on this topic. The majority of your defense against my proof has been the conclusion that you carry over from made up, pretend scenarios. That's not proof. If the evidence pointed clearly to a historical Jesus, I would believe in a historical Jesus. No skin off my nose. I can dismiss a religion without dismissing its prophet. i do it everyday with Mormonism, Islam and Scientology.

"then you should drop those beliefs altogether, not try to find a way to make them fit."

Which is what I do. You are the one who does the opposite. For example, I used to believe in a historic Jesus. Then I did the research and proved myself wrong. I actually was in an argument with a friend who told me that Jesus never existed. I argued that he had actually existed. So we had a nice debate like this one. I lost. I ended up changing my own mind on the subject. That is not something I enjoy doing as I hate to be proven wrong.

"ABIGAIL: Jesus himself believed in those earlier books of the bible. He studied them, taught them, preached them."

DAVID:And where does it say that He held them to be literal instead of allegorical? Jesus frequently used parables to make his points, such as with the story of the Good Samaritan or the Sower of Seeds. Obviously, Jesus wasn't opposed to using allegory in His teachings."

Picking and choosing, picking and choosing. You are deciding for yourself which parts are open to your personal interpretation. Tsk-tsk. Your bible (In the NT) clearly states not to do this.

"You seem to be assuming that, even though I am a Christian, I believe miracles are scientifically impossible. I don't, and never said I did with any of the examples I gave. I'm not aware of any Christian who believes that miracles are impossible."

Yeah, I know.... miracles aren't scientifically impossible at all since God can bend all laws of physics and go against natural law. *rolls eyes*

"I said Adam and Eve is allegory because the universe is billions of years old, not just thousands as a literal reading of the story would suggest. And I said Jonah is allegory because of the relationship between the writer and the events, not because it contains any scientific impossibilities."

Another example of you picking your different personal ways to interpret the bible, based on your own criterion. Pick and choose. Hypocrite.

"Not mine, either. I said no such thing. Don't put words into my mouth."

I don't need to put words in your mouth to make you look ridiculous. You do that on your own. You need no help from me. I just sit back and watch you fall further and further away from reality.

"Where in the Bible does it say the author was directly told this stuff by God?"

I am so sick of teaching the bible to you. 2 Timothy 3:16 tells us: “All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.” And Peter speaks about the OT by saying “And we have the word of the prophets made more certain, and you will do well to pay attention to it, as to a light shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts. Above all, you must understand that no prophecy of Scripture came about by the prophet’s own interpretation. For prophecy never had its origin in the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.” There are also stories in the OT where Moses speaks directly to God. One example being when he went to Mt. Sinai to receive the 10 Commandments. Another example is here: Exodus 33:9.

"ABIGAIL: Interpreting the bible as you see fit is hypocritical if you are to use the bible as a literal example of evidence. Not only is it hypocritical but it described in the NT as something believers CAN NOT DO."

"DAVID: You're acting like I'm doing it arbitrarily."

You are absolutely doing it arbitrarily.

"I'm using specific criteria which I've laid out for you when deciding what is literal and what might be allegorical,"

And the criteria changes depending on the circumstance. Hypocrite.

You should seriously spend some time studying this stuff before attempting to engage in a debate. I may be an atheist but that doesn't mean I don't study the s**t out of this stuff.

-Abigail

"This response from you is astounding. It is proof that you pick and choose which parts of the bible are real and which are not."

Based on the evidence, yes.

"Your reasons for doing so run from relationships between alleged authors and the events, to scientific proof, to that's what tradition states."

Yes, I consider multiple types of evidence, and not just one type.

"All of this proves that you are a big fat hypocrite and pick and chose which parts of the bible are true based on your ever changing, arbitrary rules."

"Going where the evidence points" isn't arbitrary.

"You believe some things are fictional because of your personal reasons but believe others such as God creating the universe and therefore being able to bend and manipulate natural law. You believe this, which is stated in Genesis, along side the rest of the creation myth."

But I don't believe this because Genesis says so. I came to believe in God prior to believing in the Bible, remember? My reasons for believing that God created the universe have to do with the apparent purposefulness of the universe itself.

"But you dismiss the rest of the creation myth as allegorical because it can be proven wrong by science. So you take 1 story (the creation myth) and believe parts and dismiss other parts according to your personal whims."

I decide what to believe based on what the evidence says.

"DAVID:First of all, the Bible doesn't say that Moses wrote the entire Pentateuch, so if he didn't, that doesn't make the bible fallible. It just makes those who think Moses wrote the entire Pentateuch fallible.  The *evidence* suggests that Moses probably didn't write the entire thing, since the book of Deuteronomy describes Moses' death.

ABIGAIL: LOL!! Where do you come up with this s**t? I'll tell you what? We can discuss the bible as soon as you f**king read it.  The Pentateuch is an anonymous work - Just like the Gospels are. The Books do, however, give indications of Moses as its writer:

He was ordered to write historical facts (Ex 17:14; Num 33:1-2), laws (Ex 24:4, 7; 34:27ff) and one poem (Deut 31:9, 22).

Moses is affirmed as author in the rest of the OT: (Joshua 1:7-8; 8:32, 34; 22:5; 1 Ki 2:3; 2 Ki 14:6; 21:8; Ezra 6:18; Dan 9:11-13; Mal 4:4.

The NT ALSO referred to Moses as the author of the Pentateuch (Matt 19:18; Mark 12:26; Luke 2:22; 16:29; 24:27; John 5:46-47; 7:19; Acts13:39; Rom 10:5) Moses is testified to be the author of the whole Pentateuch in a unanimous way in the Talmud and by the Church Fathers!"

Since Moses wrote the bulk of it, he could certainly be called the author of it. To give an analogy, Victor Fleming is always credited as being the "director" of the Wizard of Oz, even though it's well-known that there are a few scenes in the movie that were directed by other people (since Fleming was also working on "Gone With The Wind" at the time). If someone said that Fleming directed "Wizard of Oz", I would consider that a true statement, just as I would consider calling the Pentateuch "the Book of Moses" a true statement. The fact that there are a handful of passages that were written by someone else doesn't change the general truth of that.

"DAVID:But for Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, there is no compelling evidence that they didn't write those books.

ABIGAIL:More like there is no evidence that they DID write those books."

Sure there is. When a book is always credited to a specific author, it's safe to conclude that the author probably wrote the book, unless there is evidence that they didn't write it (i.e. they weren't alive when the book was written, or it contains information that author couldn't have known, or the writing style was different than their other work, or the author claimed not to have written it). Can you think of any examples where a non-Bibilical book is always credited to a specific author, there is no evidence that this person didn't write the book, but scholars generally doubt that the authorship credit is correct? Only when it comes to the Bible do people *ever* seem to do this.

"DAVID: You acknowledge that I believe in God, right? And that God, per my beliefs, created the universe and thus created all of the scientific laws that the universe runs by? If God created those laws, then He wouldn't be bound by them. Especially since those laws only govern that which is natural, and God is not a natural being. If He created all of the matter and energy in the universe, He would be able to manipulate that matter and energy in a way that us natural beings, being bound by these laws, could not. His doing so would not be impossible.

ABIGAIL:.......ummmm...okaaaay. How can I f**king argue with this nonsense? This is insanity. Pure, fantasy. How could i possibly argue with your made up, fantastic, dream-like scenario? You have completely hit rock bottom. You have entered into la-la land and I refuse to follow you there. This is asinine. I prefer to stay firmly in reality."

You don't need to argue with it. All I'm trying to explain to you is that I believe that God is capable of performing miracles, the same as practically every other Christian in the world believes. Okay?

"Once again, you start with your belief and manipulate and arrange the evidence to explain them."

No. I go where the evidence points. Always.

"And your criteria for evidence and standards changes throughout. Sometimes you go by authors relationships, sometime you go by scientific proof, sometimes you go by tradition."

That's because there isn't only *one* type of evidence. Anyone who only considers one type of evidence and ignores other types isn't going to end up getting the whole picture and will frequently be led to an incorrect conclusion. If you're saying that I should only use *one* type of evidence in determining whether a writing is literal or allegorical, then which type is that?

"All of it though corresponds with your beliefs. Hence, you allow your belief to dictate your criteria."

No, my beliefs are the *result* of looking at the various types of evidence and drawing conclusions from that evidence. I started out as an atheist and became convinced by the evidence, first, that God existed and, later, that Jesus was resurrected.

"DAVID: You shouldn't arrange your beliefs to fit the evidence.

ABIGAIL: Why not? it is the smart thing to do after all. Especially if you want your beliefs to be valid."

It's okay to want your beliefs to be valid. But if the evidence says that they're not, then you should drop them rather than try arrange them to make them fit. For example, I want to believe that my house is not on fire. But if my house catches on fire, I don't write off the smoke as "fog that somehow got into my house" or the blaring smoke alarms as "they must be malfunctioning!" or the rising heat as "it must be a *really* balmy day!"

"If the evidence pointed clearly to a historical Jesus, I would believe in a historical Jesus."

Great! Because it clearly does. An atheist simply going where the evidence points would, of course, refuse to believe in the miracles (since they would be impossible to an atheist), but would conclude that Jesus, at the very least, lived, preached and was executed, since the secular evidence shows us that at least that much is true.

"Which is what I do. You are the one who does the opposite. For example, I used to believe in a historic Jesus. Then I did the research and proved myself wrong."

Even though you couldn't find any evidence for His non-existence? Or if you did find some, feel free to present it sometime.

"I actually was in an argument with a friend who told me that Jesus never existed. I argued that he had actually existed. So we had a nice debate like this one. I lost. I ended up changing my own mind on the subject. That is not something I enjoy doing as I hate to be proven wrong."

How did he convince you? Did he give you evidence of Jesus' non-existence? If so, why not pass that evidence on to me? Then we might get somewhere.

"Picking and choosing, picking and choosing. You are deciding for yourself which parts are open to your personal interpretation."

Based on the evidence, yes.

"Yeah, I know.... miracles aren't scientifically impossible at all since God can bend all laws of physics and go against natural law. *rolls eyes*"

Again, that's what I believe. I'm not asking you to agree with it, just to acknowledge it. I'm not aware of anyone who believes in God, but thinks that God is bound by the same natural laws that we are.

"DAVID:Not mine, either. I said no such thing. Don't put words into my mouth.

ABIGAIL: I don't need to put words in your mouth to make you look ridiculous."

If so, then why do you? This conversation would go a whole lot smoother if you'd just respond to what I'm saying, rather than twisting my words and responding to what you twisted them to be. I clearly said that the story of Jonah "isn't scientifically impossible", but you pretended that I said it *is* scientifically impossible and called me a hypocrite for not rejecting other miracles as impossible. If you'd simply acknowledged that I said it wasn't impossible, and instead responded to the reason I *gave* for believe that Jonah was allegorical, we could have gotten a lot further a lot sooner. Instead, you had to pretend I gave a different reason in order to pretend I was a hypocrite.

"DAVID: Where in the Bible does it say the author was directly told this stuff by God?"

"ABIGAIL: I am so sick of teaching the bible to you. 2 Timothy 3:16 tells us: “All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.”

"God-breathed" is not the same as "dictated". If the Gospels were all dictated by God, then why aren't they all exactly the same?

"And Peter speaks about the OT by saying “And we have the word of the prophets made more certain, and you will do well to pay attention to it, as to a light shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts. Above all, you must understand that no prophecy of Scripture came about by the prophet’s own interpretation. For prophecy never had its origin in the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.”

I agree that true prophecies come from God to the prophet directly, but that doesn't mean that *everything else in the Bible* came from God to the author directly. The Bible contains many different types of writings, including prophecy, poetry, allegory, history, etc.

"There are also stories in the OT where Moses speaks directly to God. One example being when he went to Mt. Sinai to receive the 10 Commandments. Another example is here: Exodus 33:9."

And since Moses was the one who was both involved in the events and the one doing the writing, and I don't believe Moses was lying, then I believe that these events probably happened. But no one is saying that God dictated the story of "Jonah" to its author, that I'm aware of.

David