I do believe, that is I have faith, that the one so desperate to find the origins of Christianity….not in Platonism and Judaism…..must be waiting for his desired answer….God….god is the source of Christianity.
No other answer will do…..not Judaism….not Platonism corrupted by the Jew Saul…..making him a Paulist, not a christian….no other answer will do…. Christianity begins in Divine revelation.
That is an intoxicated state of religious ecstasy….full of visions and voices.
Before that….we had no morals….no love….no goodness…nothing but vicious brutality.
Then Jesus came to redeem us. And…Christianity begins. As if from nowhere.
Theists and Atheists do have hope and faith that a God does or doesn’t exist because what else can they have.They certainly can’t prove it one way or the other.
Their definition of the cocnept ‘god’ is entirely Abrahamic….
In the same way their consciousness is infected linguistically, as in the case of free-will.
They always begin with the Platonic Ideal…..some metaphysical idealization of the concepts they wish to sanctify or demonize.
They do not begin with the experienced, the observable, the physical….
They begin with nihilistic metaphysics and when reality fails to agree with their abstractions they denounce reality itself, as illusory.
They never change their own understanding, their own definitions….no, these cowardly freaks always demand that reality adjusts itself to their words.
So….god of Abraham…defined as omnipotence, omniscience, absolute, perfect etc…must either exists, contrary to the experienced world, or it must not because god, the very cocnept, is now eternally tied to this one definition……
Yet, the ancient had a different method of defining gods.
On the contrary, the world situation prepared it for Christianity. The situation into which the New Testament event came was conditioned by the universalism of the Roman empire. This involved the breakdown of national religions and cultures. It also meant that the ideal of humanity as a whole could be conceived at that time.The Roman Empire produced a definite awareness of world history in contrast to accidental tribal or national histories that preceded it. Rome represented the universal monarchy in which the whole world was united. Eventually, this idea was taken over by the Roman church and applied to the pope.
Within the realm of the Roman world was the pervasive influence of Greek thought. Greek was lingua franca of the educated classes. This was the Hellenistic period of Greek philosophy, which included the Stoicism, Epicureanism, Pythagoreanism, Skepticism, Neoplatonism, and Eclecticism. Hellenism was the immediate source of much Christian thought as presented in the ancient texts
Obviously, Christianity was much influenced by second temple Judaism, out of which it emerged. During this period the idea of God became more transcendent, universal and abstract. There was a prohibition against using the name of God and a struggle against anthropomorphism. The passion of God in the Hebrew Bible, we challenge and abstract oneness was emphasized. This made it possible for Greek philosopher’s, and Jewish universalists to unite on the idea of God. Philo of Alexander discussed in the video you linked is a salient example of this.
When the concept of God becomes abstract, mediating beings must appear between God and humanity. Angels and messiahs serve this function. In the book of Daniel, the Messiah becomes a celestial figure called the “Son of Man” who will judge the world and bring in a universal kingdom of God.During this period following the Persian captivity, Judaism showed a strong Zoroastrian influence. A number of apocalypses were written with wars between the sons of light and the sons of darkness. The Christian book of Revelation is just one example of the genre. Hypothetically, it may be a redaction of a Judaic text.
The mystery religions were also an influence as was also discussed in the video you linked. Scholars speculate on the influence of the mystery religions on people like Paul and the unknown writer of the Gospel of John. The NewTestament appropriates words, concept and symbols, which developed in the history of religions, and the picture of Jesus presented is interpreted by them. But one of the big questions of this thread is what was the Jesus movement like before it came under the influence of the educated writers of the New Testament. This question continues to be controversial among contemporary academic scholars today.
Even if one believes that the Bible is inerrant (a position which is 99% improbable) there are many unanswered questions and huge gaps between its accounts and the development of the historic church.
Your cognitively biased religious philosophy (+=- and -=+ ) and the failed science that try’s to back it up is anti God Felix…we are 100% certain of that so you are no authority on anything at all….You have your misguided views/opinions ….that’s all…..so what…are we supposed to be impressed by that?
The bible is full of wisdom Felix……something you clearly lack in abundance.
Atheists and Theists both agree 100% that either humankind is responsible for all atrocities that have/or will happen throughout history and if a devil god exists then he is 100% responsible so everyone is in agreement on that front.
I have already acknowledged the influence of Platonism on the New Testament. The so-called gnostics were Christians who were labeled as heretics by proto-orthodox Christian writers. Gnosticism as such is a category created by 19th century historians.
Even though the dudes in the video you linked react to the notion that Platonism influence early Christianity like they are freshly woke to an ancient conspiracy theory, this is old news.
Contemporary historical researchers are interested are investigating and debating numerous questions regarding the Jesus movement before the New Testament texts were written primarily focusing on the nature of the movement, the historical identity of Jesus and the transmission of his teachings during the earliest non-textual phase. Scholars differentiate between the historical Jesus and the Christ of faith portrayed in text that became scripture and theological documents. Recent scholarly debates have centered around issues like whether Jesus was primarily an apocalyptic prophet, a Cynic- like philosopher, a charismatic healer or a social revolutionary concerned with class conflict.
Live questions under scholarly investigation include:How political was Jesus‘s mission? How did the movement function without written texts? What was the early community’s relationship to other forms of Judaism? What role did different factions play?
Since Jesus left no writings of his own, historians ask what sources the gospel authors used. This includes exploring “Q” a hypothetical common source used in the gospels of Matthew and Luke and not found in Mark and other potential written or oral sources that are now lost. Scholars critically analyze early texts to differentiate, authentic reliable information from later interpretations, inventions or alterations. Debate continues to rage over their historicity of specific events, like the nativity narratives, miracles, and details regarding the crucifixion and the resurrection event. These investigations use standard historical methods, including analysis of non-Christian sources from the era like Josephus and Tacitus, internal textual criticism and archaeological evidence to reconstruct the most plausible historical context.
Most scholars in the field agreed that the original Jesus movement was a form of first century Jewish apocalypticism distinct from the more platonic forms of Christianity. In other words, Jesus was not a Platonist and the Platonism influenced later Christianity significantly but not the movements origins. So the question how compatible Jesus is thinking was to Platonism as a developed, and how much were his original ideas altered by Platonism and other forms of Hellenistic thought are open questions.
My accusations are well founded because as you can’t prove one way or the other whether God exists or not you can’t definitively confirm that you are an atheist or a theist.You have faith and hope that you are one or the other …that’s all….in your existence.
You can’t prove one way or the other whether God exists or doesn’t exist Felix….you don’t have to say anything at all.You have a hope and faith…that God does or doesn’t exist…..that’s all.There is nothing definite about your claims because your starting philosophy +=- and -=+ is a guess.That is all you can be definite about in your existence.
I am not talking nonsense Felix…I talk total sense…..you do a lot of guessing in your existence and then claim it all as fact.Your cognitively biased anti God starting +=- and -=+ philosophy is a guess and the science that tried to back it up was a total farce and has all now failed.You could adopt a cognitively biased anti God +=+ and -=- philosophy guess instead if you want or a philosophy which is a united combination of the above two philosophies (+/-=+/-).
+/-=+/- is a philosophical certainty and is the only philosophy that works and explains reality.