You’re talking about the authors of NT books. By “immediate followers” I was referring to his disciples during his lifetime. I agree that the books of the NT do not appear to have been written by those disciples. Even the letters of Paul, which Ehrman considers the strongest evidence for the historicity of Jesus have come into question. Nonetheless, according to those letters, Paul still considered himself a Pharisee and a “Hebrew of Hebrews.” He didn’t see himself as starting a new religion. He was bringing the gentiles into Christ the reality having seen that that was what Judaism was really all about.
Although he contradicted people who were criticising his Greek background,
But even there, I agree, of course, that he seems to have understood the cross in the sense of the brazen snake of Moses, and the faith alone would “heal” them of their waywardness. But this is disputed by most rabbis as the way that Israel’s role in history should be interpreted. When the Messiah comes, he will unite the Jews in Israel, and the nations will recognise Israel as a chosen people.
This was not what Paul was teaching, and his teaching would disqualify him as a Pharisee (forerunner of the Rabbinical order). Therefore, he was accused of starting a new religion.
A film crew came to Georgia, known for its long-lived people. They ask where they can talk to the oldest man. They send them to the mountains. We made it. Indeed, clean air, no supermarkets, ecological food. And already here they ask who to interview about how life should be to be long. The locals point to the old man’s house. Interview. How did you manage to live so long? The old man answers. I ate only what nature gives me. I didn’t drink, and I was moderate in everything. One wife, my favorite. During the interview, there was noise and a fight in a neighboring house. Which was very disturbing for the camera crew. They asked what was going on. The old man grumbled - the older brother was getting violent. When he came back from the city where he was homeless and ate leftovers, he chased his fifth wife because he was drunk. The next question from the crew. Why were we sent to you as the oldest resident? If you had pointed to my older brother, would he have said that you should eat right and lead a good life?
Bias - a prejudice or viewpoint of presenting or adopting a partial perspective, often accompanied by a refusal to consider the possible merits of alternative viewpoints.
You’d have to figure out why the Jews wrote the Bible for over a hundred years. Why they rewrote it over and over again.
Then you will understand what the Bible is.
Which rabbis? The Pharisees? The Sadducees? The Essenes? The Samaritans? John the Baptist? Jesus of Nazareth? The zealots? Philo of Alexandria? You see the problem. There wasn’t a single unified Judaism at that time.
When Luther began to teach theology, in 1512, he put forward his theory of justification by faith alone, of God’s forgiving love freely bestowed upon all who simply repent of their sins and trust in Christ. He convinced himself that that was the true faith of the Catholic Church, and he tried to combine his new-found doctrine with all other teaching of Catholic theology.
Gradually, however, Luther encountered opposition to his new theory of justification by faith alone. On October 31,1517 he published his 95 Theses, declaring that indulgences destroyed the true spirit of repentance. Called to account, he refused to recant his views unless refuted by biblical evidence itself, refusing to accept the authority and traditional teachings of the Church as reliable sources of doctrine.
In 1520, he definitely broke with the Catholic Church, substituting for its authority that of the Bible as interpreted by each reader for himself. In a book called The Liberty of a Christian Man he issued his proclamation that men are justified by faith alone and that every Christian is his own priest, having direct access to God and needing neither a visible Church nor the mediation of any other priests.
Benjamin H Freeman claims that the word Jew was only introduced into the English language in the 18th century and that Jesus referred to himself as a Judean and not as a Jew. Inscribed upon the cross when Jesus was crucified with the Latin words Aus nazarenus Rex deorum which means Jesus of Nazareth ruler of the Judeans. Today the word Jew has a religious as well as a political connotation you think of a Jewish entity a government but you also think of their Religion incorporated at the same time whereas the term Judean is a geographic connotation.
Throughout history, a number of Jewish scholars and thinkers have critiqued Christian interpretations of the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh), particularly the ways in which the New Testament applies prophetic passages or messianic expectations to Jesus. These critiques often focus on textual, historical, or linguistic grounds. Below are some of the most significant Jewish critics across time:
- Rabbi Jacob ben Reuben (12th century)
Work: Milhamot HaShem (“Wars of the Lord”)
Context: A polemic aimed at Christian claims about Jesus being the Messiah.
Criticism: He contests specific New Testament claims, especially messianic prophecies, arguing they are misread or quoted out of context.
- Rabbi Saadia Gaon (9th–10th century)
Work: While not focused directly on Christianity, his Arabic translation and commentary on the Tanakh addresses messianic expectations.
Relevance: He upheld rational interpretations and resisted allegorical readings, especially those foreign to Jewish tradition.
- Rabbi Moshe ben Nachman (Nachmanides / Ramban) (1194–1270)
Famous Debate: Barcelona Disputation (1263) against Pablo Christiani, a Jewish convert to Christianity.
Criticism: Argued that Jesus failed to fulfil the messianic prophecies—such as bringing peace, rebuilding the Temple, or gathering the exiles.
Quote: “What you have believed in on the basis of the prophets is not found in the prophets.”
- Rabbi Yitzhak of Troki (1533–1594)
Work: Chizzuk Emunah (“Strengthening of Faith”)
One of the most comprehensive Jewish refutations of Christian readings of the Tanakh.
Arguments include:
NT authors take verses out of context.
Prophecies claimed to refer to Jesus were either misapplied or misunderstood.
Jewish messianic expectations remain unfulfilled.
- Rabbi Joseph Albo (1380–1444)
Work: Sefer Ha-Ikkarim (“Book of Principles”)
While less polemical, he critiques non-Jewish readings of Scripture, and defines Jewish doctrine against Christian theology.
- Modern Jewish Scholars
Many 19th–21st century Jewish scholars have continued the critique, often from historical or literary perspectives:
Abraham Geiger (1810–1874): Founder of Reform Judaism. Argued that Christianity arose from sectarian Judaism and misread prophetic traditions.
Joseph Klausner (1874–1958): Jesus of Nazareth (1922)—acknowledged Jesus as a historical Jew but not the Messiah.
David Flusser (1917–2000): While open to Christian-Jewish dialogue, he pointed out how Gospel writers adapted or misquoted the Tanakh.
Amy-Jill Levine (b. 1956): A Jewish New Testament scholar who critiques Christian readings while promoting Jewish-Christian understanding. She highlights how the Tanakh is often misused in sermons and translations.
Common Jewish Critiques of NT Use of the Tanakh:
Contextual distortion: NT writers often isolate verses without considering their original context.
Mistranslation: Especially via the Septuagint (Greek Bible), which sometimes differs from the Hebrew text.
Midrashic or allegorical methods: NT writers used Jewish interpretive techniques in ways Jewish tradition rejected for messianic claims.
The Garden of Eden story seems to be, that it is some kind of Virtual Reality or “Matrix World”. Humans were in some kind of “Virtual Reality” Garden of Eden world made in 7 days, or a parallel dimension. Then kicked out and now in the real world. Alternatively, it could mean that the “Garden of Eden” is actually the real world, and that this reality is a fake virtual reality world, or alternate dimension.
It is because of the Crusades, which are still ongoing to this day. There became a Judeo-Christian alliance against the Caliphate. They are all still kids at the playground fighting each other, who haven’t grown up.
fruits want to be eaten, they reproduce through seeds in poop.
and herbivores can eat plants just fine, plants don’t seem to have an effective evolutionary defense against herbivores, otherwise animal life would have died out.
Actually, according to Jesus, God’s forgiving love is freely bestowed upon all whether they repent of their sins and trust in Christ or not. According to the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus taught “But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust.” If God’s love depended on us repenting and trusting, repenting and trusting would be “good works” and salvation would be conditional, a contradiction of the concept of grace.
My point was simply that according to the New Testament both Jesus and Paul saw themselves as preaching the true faith of the Hebrew scriptures not as persons starting a new religion. The rejection of that their messages by most Jews and acceptance by mostly gentiles is pivotal in the perception of Christianity as a separate and distinct group.
Is this a serious gambit??
You know you are using a 21stC idea to try to explain a stroy written anywhere between 3 thousand and 2.5 thousands years ago?
Good luck with that.
Gosh crazy idea number two and the sun is till not yet down
You are not a herbivore. You only have a small gut and one stomach.
We do better with meat,
As for fruit - the plant has no interest in you thriving, just shitting.
Some fruits are so toxic as to be fatal. In this case your dead body nourishes the plant’s next generation.
I do not think that is a fair estimation.
If half the things that are supposed to have come out of Jesus’ mouth are correct then they are a large departure from the Jewish religion, on several levels.
If opening up the religion to every Tom Dick and Harry, and away from a strictly controlled racialist religion is not a NRM, then I do not know what it.
Most of the cults that are the NewRMs from “standard” christianity are not so sundering. Not even the leap from Catholic to Protestant are that much of a departure; being mostly about ritual practice, and arguments about the number of angels you can get to boogie on the head of a pin,
This presenter has many interesting guests on his programme, I watch on a fairly regular basis.
“This food is worse than smoking” should be common knowledge for most of us. I come from a family whose mother baked her own bread and loved cooking and was very creative in doing so, who preferred to labor, over convenience, so I was made aware fairly early on about the good and the bad in foods.
I am not saying that I don’t ever eat Macca’s for example, but can’t remember the last time I did, but after reading about their meat, I don’t think I will ever again.
What’s for Dinner tonight? 
Did you see the episode on The Cancer Expert: This common food is making Cancer Worse.
The phrase “Depart from me, you workers of iniquity” is a quote from the Bible specifically Matthew 7.23. It is spoken by Jesus to those who claim to have known him and done good works in his name, but whose lives were characterized by unrighteousness. It signifies a separation from those who practice lawlessness and do not truly follow God’s teachings.
The New Testament, particularly the Apostle Paul, cites many prophecies from the Hebrew scriptures to support the inclusion of Gentiles in the “Israel of God”. (Galatians 6:16)
Key prophecies include:
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Hosea 2:23:“I will sow her like seed for myself in the earth, And I will show mercy to her who was not shown mercy; I will say to those not my people: ‘You are my people,’ And they will say: ‘You are my God.’” Paul applies this to the Gentiles in Romans 9:25 and 26, explaining that God is calling those who were not his people (the Gentiles) to become his people.
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Hosea 1:10:“And in the place where it was said to them, “You are not my people,” it shall be said to them “Children of the living God.”” Paul quotes this passage in Romans 9:26 to further illustrate that the Gentiles, who were once not considered God’s people, are now called “sons of the living God”.
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Isaiah 11:10: “In that day the Root of Jesse will stand as a banner for the peoples; the nations will rally to him, and his resting place will be glorious”.
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Isaiah 42:1-4: “Here is my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen one in whom I delight; I will put my Spirit on him, and he will bring justice to the nations.” This is cited in Matthew 12:15-21 and used to demonstrate that Jesus fulfills the prophecy of the Messiah who would bring salvation and justice to the Gentiles.
When interpreted in light of Jesus as the Christ, such prophecies to Israel were taken to demonstrate that God’s plan of salvation was not limited to the Jewish people but included people from all nations. Paul argues that the fulfillment of these prophecies in the life and ministry of Jesus Christ, and the subsequent inclusion of Gentiles as God”s people was in keeping with God’s long-standing purpose.