“At least you are giving them some credit. It really wasn’t that easy to fool people with “fabricated” events involving prominent cities and countries. News traveled through trade as well; one way people verified info about farther away places back then.
I just can’t write about a major event involving two prominent cities being obliterated and get away with it unless there was some level of truth to it, even back then.”
There are just so stories about both the recent and distant past invented all the time. Even when disproved people continue to still believe them. Religion isn’t a special case; these are every where.
There are all sorts of widely believed bullshit about foreign cultures, unfamiliar occupations, and everything else. Just read snopes.
“Also, even if there is no remaining evidence (sometimes being all lost in times past), it does not mean that the event did not occur. The lack of evidence does not mean the lack of existence.”
In Egypt? With all the evidence we have? Unlikely.
“but that is impossible for you to assume because you begin with the presupposition that the Biblical writers are lying about everything.”
Is it fair to say that you’d agree that the authors of the Epic of Giglamesh were lying about everything?
“The ancient Egyptians don’t have any incentive to leave records of this embarrassing occurrence. If anything, they would want to cover this event up so as not to be ridiculed by neighboring nations or by their posterity who would view them as weak.”
You can’t have it both ways: either the Ancients were smart and skeptical enough to believe in miracles based on evidence, or they were a bunch of plebs who only believed what the official history was. Not both.
“If most of those 1000 people are still alive, live in my city, and are accessible by me for interview and they affirm your claim it does add credibility to your claim. ”
But they weren’t. The symmetry isn’t there. They were all or very, very mostly all dead at that point.
At this point, we aren’t even talking about a world religion, just a particularly successful cult. How many people alive have personally met L Ron Hubbard? How many people are Scientologists? There you go.
“And for a note, it was not written a hundred years after Jesus death; more like a few decades.”
There’s no evidence of that.
“The CIA has whatsoever no incentive to care about Elvis sightings, whereby the Jewish leaders had every incentive in the world to care about the claim that Jesus resurrected from the dead and they did care a lot. I don’t have time to go into proof that they cared but just understand that the Jewish leaders had the same level of incentive to care about this claim as Homeland Security will have if multiple people claim they sighted a well known most wanted terrorist in their city.”
I think the authorities in this case refer to the Romans, who had been pretty successful with the whole religious tolerance thing. They let all sorts of insane mystery cults hold sway over small groups of followers as long as they recognized Roman law. The Romans would see a new cult, the eigth messiah in just as many years, and made sure they paid their taxes and didn’t make trouble, at least as long as they couldn’t be viewed as a threat.
There are just so stories about both the recent and distant past invented all the time. Even when disproved people continue to still believe them. Religion isn’t a special case; these are every where.
There are all sorts of widely believed bullshit about foreign cultures, unfamiliar occupations, and everything else. Just read snopes.
In Egypt? With all the evidence we have? Unlikely.
Is it fair to say that you’d agree that the authors of the Epic of Giglamesh were lying about everything?
You can’t have it both ways: either the Ancients were smart and skeptical enough to believe in miracles based on evidence, or they were a bunch of plebs who only believed what the official history was. Not both.
But they weren’t. The symmetry isn’t there. They were all or very, very mostly all dead at that point.
At this point, we aren’t even talking about a world religion, just a particularly successful cult. How many people alive have personally met L Ron Hubbard? How many people are Scientologists? There you go.
There’s no evidence of that.
I think the authorities in this case refer to the Romans, who had been pretty successful with the whole religious tolerance thing. They let all sorts of insane mystery cults hold sway over small groups of followers as long as they recognized Roman law. The Romans would see a new cult, the eigth messiah in just as many years, and made sure they paid their taxes and didn’t make trouble, at least as long as they couldn’t be viewed as a threat.
The Jews are another matter, of course:
http://www.thebricktestament.com/the_law/false_prophets/dt13_01.html