Story of Jesus Christ was 'fabricated to pacify the poor', claims controversial Biblical scholar

He's not the only one who thinks Jesus was an entirely fictional character.

I don't think Jesus was entirely fictional . I think he was a composite figure combining all the best values of that era .

I don't think Jesus was entirely fictional . I think he was a composite figure combining all the best values of that era

.... that was created on paper decades after his legend says thathe died. There's no other word for that than fiction. I don't disparage the concept, I disparage the factthat true faith in the religion built around him requires acceptance not only that he was real, but that any other deity from any other religion is not real. All that from a religionthat commands thou not to lie.

Not only that, but plenty was being written about his contemporaries that has survived to date. Apparently Jesus just wasn't that impressive to actually write about. A few decades of folklore ought to spice him up a bit.

Well, it is October ...

I disparage the fact that true faith in the religion built around him requires acceptance not only that he was real, but that any other deity from any other religion is not real.

I don't know what you mean ... Look how many Protestant sects there are !

All that from a religion that commands thou not to lie.

Are you referring to the commandment about bearing false witness ?

Are you referring to the commandment about bearing false witness ?

Yes, that is generally interpreted as thou shalt not lie. The doctrine does not practice what it preaches. Believe these lies, but don't go forth and lie, and especially do not believe the lies of any religion other than this one that is lying to you now.

I wonder where he kept the 400,000 species of beetles?

The funny thing is the easiest answer for a believer to offer is the one that they never use - when the water finally went away, God snapped his fingers and the animals all reappeared. Done and done! I wonder how manycreationistsare pissed that the scriptures didn't contain that little detail. It would have saved them a lot of exhausting mental gymnastics.

I agree John.

Yes, that is generally interpreted as thou shalt not lie.

That's not the interpretation I've seen which is : "thou shalt not bear false witness." There is no commandment against telling tall tales ... just not in front of a judge .

There is nothing written about him that was written while he was "alive" or by anyone who knew him first hand. I've always thought of him as a myth

Not so Randy, Peter, John, Luke and some others where first hand witnesses.

This chart might interest you as far as not changing over time.

carm

So no matter what I say or show, you just go on and on. This is why I hate going on these articles.

The Romans had no use what so ever for Christianity. If they had wanted to create a religion that attracted the poor and helped them accept their lot, they would have started a cult within the confines of the state religion. The tolerant polytheism of the Empire would have made it very easy to create and promote a state friendly religion that didn't come with the challenges to the empire inherent in Christianity. The monotheism professed by Christians was a direct challenge to the state religion and the reason why Christianity was one of the few religions the Roman Empire bothered to suppress. It's silly to think that a religion started by a state sponsored conspiracy would hold so many tenants that were inimical to the state. The theory just makes no sense from the Roman point of view, even if you accept that they were capable and interested in engaging in such a massive conspiracy.

Religions of all kinds have always been a psychological tool, or the opiate of the masses. When knowledge ofthe workings of nature was in its infancy, this tool was especially practical. Asthe universe's secrets slowly unravel, this tool becomes less and less effective.The evidence that the Jesus character is fictitious is simply overwhelmingconsidering how the doctrine of Christianity was developed, its similarities to prior competing religions, and the lack of real-time historical recordsfor events thatwould beprofoundly divine. All the musings in the world about how contrary this theory runs in relation to perceived Roman culture cannot make up for that obvious fact.

It's called debate, and it involves dialogue. Going on and on is encouraged. You seem to be upset because nobody else finds your source to be the score settler that you do.

Let's resort to common sense for a minute - don't you think that an omnipotent, infallible, omniscient, omnipresent entity could have done a better job at solidifying human confidence in its existence? Do you have a response as to why a primitive culture would be more worthy of direct communication with the almighty thanany culture downstream of that one? With today's population, on average ten people die of various causes every second throughout the world - do you really have faith in the concept of personally meeting Jesus when you die?

Dear Friend Arch Man: I too noticed this. It isn't clear why.

All I can do is wish everyone well, and say, "G-d bless to one and all".

E.

Here is the ultimate irony - atheists are frequently more informed about a wider range of religions than the average theist, but because they are atheists, the theists insist that the descriptor "informed" be replaced with "obsessed." The more we research, the more we are "obsessed." The hypocrisy is glaringly transparent.

Christ spoke to the spirit of the ten commandments when he gave us the golden rule.

My fellow atheist, I beg to differ. The golden rule predates Christianity by thousands of years, going back to Confucius. Christ just "stole" it. Again, not practicing what he preaches. Perhaps he could have given credit to where credit was due.

Dear Friend Flameaway: We both believe in kindness. Let's start there, on our common ground.

Why dwell on what we don't agree? Why trash what each other holds dear, if not sacred? Why disparage each other? It solves nothing, and doesn't lead to a world more just, peaceful or more productive.

Why not simply live and let live where there is no agreement?

Where there is agreement, like on the value of kindness, why not form a coalition to promote kindness, not discord. Why not look out for our fellow members of the family of humanity?

In a free society, it is not the choices we make that make us free. It is rather that we have the choice to follow that path in life's journey which speaks most meaningfully to us. To each his or her own.

Peace, meaning, comfort, fellowship and abundant blessings, my dear friend.

Enoch.

Being the "obsessed, aggressive atheist" that I am, I just finished a series of lectures about Hinduism. It certainly doesn't make me an expert on Indian religions, but it did provide me with an undeniable observation. India is likely more saturated with religious iconography than any other country on earth. Religious symbology is in every home, many times in every room of every home, and in every public facility, and there are more Hindu holidays than any other religion on earth.Hinduism is grounded infascinatingly introspective and passionatephilosophies and beliefs, with some of the most dedicated adherents in all of mankind.

Yet, Indian culture involves some of the most heinous treatment ofits adherentsimaginable. Children have their spouses chosen for them, yearsin advance and in return for a dowry,sometimes never even meeting their spouseuntil the day of the wedding. Female fetuses are aborted in grossly disproportionate ratios to males, because males are so heavily favored. Female widows are commonly driven away and abandoned by their families. Before being outlawed by the British, tradition was for female widows to throw themselves on the funeral pyre of their deceased husbands, or if they refused then be thrown on the fire by their families. Indian society is structured on an inflexible caste system, complete with millions of people who are considered and labeled untouchable throughout the entirety of their lives. So what has their devotion to their religion accomplished in terms of advancing humanistic prosperity and kindness? Treating a cow with more reverence than a wife shows utter disregard for human kindness.

Hal I believe you are exactly right. Belief in a diety goes back way before Jesus suggested time he was concocted several hundred years after his supposible death a Johnny come lately. The Resurection was conceived to make this Religion more powerful. The old saying the Pen is more powerful than the sword.

That saying and Religion proves that you can fool most of the People most of the time. Ted Cruz and his Daddy are Prime examples of religious extortion, as was Romney the old do as i say not as I do. Priest having sex with children more proof that Christianity is a ruse. Religion is kind of like believing in pro wrestling. Some will willing fight to protect their belief that pro wrestling is real.

I'm glad I took world history classes prior to coming to this site. The amount of misinformation is so staggering, I don't know where to begin.

I will say that the internet brought in focus, the age of the Angry Atheist. Now, I'm not sure if this is just a personality quirk or some psychological problem, you see them mainly online. I went to a couple of these public forum "Free-thinker" meetings and it's a group comparable to the tea party tools. You could almost feel their venom. These were way over the top for me so I stopped going.

Sometimes they are fun to shake their cages or argue with but so intrenched are they with their message, it's like rocking in a rocking chair....It gives you something to do but doesn't get you anywhere.

Dear Friend Flameaway: I am indebted to you for light shown on this topic.

It seems you had negative experiences with religion in general, and perhaps a religion specifically. I regret that anyone endures negative experiences. Sometimes we are the stronger for overcoming them.

Religion (there are probably thousands of them) isn't the only way to lead a productive, happy and healthy life. It is best each of us find what works for us.

The same kinds of things that upset you about religion probably are the ones that bother me too, as a believer.

If religion doesn't work for some, then they need to look elsewhere. If it does, they need look no further. The next move for everyone, whatever they choose is to live it in such a way that it best benefits themselves, those around them, and the material environment.

For me, that entails loving my neighbors as myself, being the keeper of our brothers and sisters, all in the human family. Not using them for my agenda. Rather, being there for them when and as they need me. A life of service to G-d through serving the needs of anyone He created, in such ways as they wish to seek my help.

That works for me. It doesn't mean the world should cease revolving on its axis because I found what I sought.

We will disagree. We do it without being disagreeable. That is part of our friendship. We respect each others ways and boundaries. We also connect where we do agree.

Kindness works for us both. I have not seen kindness hurt anyone in my two thirds of a century in this life.

Onward and upward, my dear friend. Your wisdom and fellowship are among the things I value about you.

Peace, abundant blessings, meaning, truth, and fulfillment to you and yours.

Enoch.

Let's resort to common sense for a minute - don't you think that an omnipotent, infallible, omniscient, omnipresent entity could have done a better job at solidifying human confidence in its existence?

Hal,

I am not a religious person... but if I may...

You are assigning human qualities to "god", one of those being ego. The other is caring if we know about it or not. I superior being wouldn't. We would be nothing more than just specs in an infinite universe. I think this is where both atheist and deist get it wrong. The idea that god actually cares about us specifically or has the need to make himself known.

Obviously, that is a parable. It isn't meant literally. That story exists in about 10 cultures and for people of a simple mind, I think it was a way to explain the ice age and the end of it.

Aeon,

Had the same experience as you did. The anger in the room was almost shocking! On the other hand I have been to many other houses of worship of many other faiths and never once felt that they were angry at anyone. Full disclosure, I never went to one that was big on converting.

God is anthropomorphized in nearly every religion to some degree or another. Why is it okay to pick and choose what human qualities an unknowable god should have?

For the record, as stated by me many times, I'm perfectly fine with pantheistic interpretations of the mysteries that appear to maintain orderin the universe. However, that is never the focus of the mainstream, organized religions that assert themselves and strive to be influential in the politics of humanity. Gods are defined by man to achievecertain goals of certain men. This fact couldn't be more obvious upon inspection of their doctrines, where women play submissive roles of minor importance, and slavery is commonplace and acceptable, and rules are established for the express purposes of denial of other gods.

A pantheistic entity would indeed have no interest in us as individuals. If all of humanity had this worldview, the world would be a much better place.

No worries mate. All in good fun. I've been known to beat them over the head with their own club from time to time. Ambiguous doctrines lend themselves to that task quite nicely.

Unless they tell me, I don't know nor have I ever asked if any of my friends have faith or not. It doesn't really matter to me. Except for those obsessive about sex, I have no overtly neurotic or fanatic friends on that list either.

Hal,

Two faiths come to mind; Universalists and the Baha'i. They don't attempt to define or divide. I guess on some level they are pantheistic.

The concept of God isn't something that I assign human qualities to. It would be flawed as we are.

As forreligion, those who believe but don't try to convert me to their beliefs are fine with me. To each their own.

As a life long atheist, I regularly attended church until high school (at the demands of my parents), then I attended a Jesuit high school (at the request of my parents), then I married into (and divorced out of) a Catholic family,and paid for our two girls to go to school at a parochial school up until they reached high school. As an adult, several timesI have volunteered at my parent's church by visiting food banks and preparing bags for the needy. For the most part, I would agree that most of the parishioners are decent people who are involved with churchmorefor the social aspects than thereligious ones.

However, let's not pretend that there aren't plentywho use religion to prey on others. Ipersonally know of three ministers who cheated on their wiveswith members of the congregation, breaking up a total of six marriages and families. I personally knew a Deacon who had several female employees file sexual harassment charges against him over a period of several years, and who kept disturbing pornography on his computer, and who had daughtersthat were very sexualized and mentally unstable from prior sexual abusebyrelatives of their father. Obviously, the Catholic Church has been very publicly embroiled in numerouspedophile and cover-up scandals that were the result of allowing the wrong people to gain the trust of children through religious affiliations. Other denominationshave experiencedsimilar odiouscrimes.

While I have never attended a "free-thinker" meeting myself, I imagine that these are the kinds of topics that get the members animated. It doesn't take a world class education in world history tofeel outrageover those kinds of abuses.

As forreligion, those who believe but don't try to convert me to their beliefs are fine with me. To each their own.

It's easy enough to tell them to pound sand up their butts - they don't even bother me. In fact,anyonewho keep their religion to themselves and votes on issues based on secular reasoning doesn't bother me. It's the ones who allow themselves and their votes to be hijacked by religion that bother me. The ones that routinely challenge religion's place infederal/state/local government - theDominionists who don't even attempt to disguise their agenda of impacting everyone with their particular values. It is particularly insulting when these same peoplepick and choose which portions of theirreligious doctrine toobserve, depending on what suits them and their cause.

• As a life long atheist,

So, from the moment of birth, you claim to have been an atheist. Cool.

nd the lack of real-time historical recordsfor events thatwould beprofoundly divine.

You can't even mount an internally consistent argument in favor of this train wreck of a theory. On the one hand you ignore the overwhelming contemporary documentation that Romans had no use for the Christian religion but then turn around and argue that Jesus couldn't have existed because he's not in those same records you turn around and cite as an authority.

Before you continue such drivel, go to your nearest university and take a survey level class of Roman history.

If you don't believe, fine, don't believe. But there is no reason to"preach" your position. It seems that some non-believers feel the need for more "converts" of the True Non-Faith.

I think there are inner conflicts going on hereof which we are unaware. Is it rejection out of anger? Logical thought processes? I don't know.

I wish I were able to talk about this without ridicule. But, I do not believe in trying to convert anyone to anything, (other than water issues). We must all find our own path.

And by that same token, while faith plays a large part of my daily life, I must accept people as they are-- and try to understand how others feel that do not feel as I do. Again, we must all find our own path.

You are hysterical. Because the Romans at the time of the supposed Jesus had no use for the Christian religion (which was eventually adopted by Constantine specifically because it was so useful, so go figure), then they would have gone out of their way to ensure that profoundly divine events by the supposed actual human Jesus never once showed up in the historical records of Romans, or any literate non-Romans of the day. Effectively, you are proposing a lack of interest in Jesus as proof of his existence. Christianity relies heavily on that type of circular logic.

If the Romans in fact created the story and developed it across all of their annexed or defeated countries, they like our politicians believed lying was a method to achieved their ends. Workers who work for a mere pittance be they slaves in total or slaves driven by necessity for food water and a place to live. Their children were in fact sold boy children as workers in the fields or mines and young girls sold as sex slaves or slaves to clean the homes of the rich.

Unfortunately with the aid of religion pushed by the Top 1% history is in the process of repeating itself. Eliminating women's rights. Decreasing wages eliminating laws that block child labor. Forcing women to bear children even if caused by rape. Fighting against equal pay for women. Using tax payer money to destroy the American job market by paying companies to send jobs overseas. Billionaires controlling/approving the curriculum of Colleges across the country. Political Evangilical or theological religious leaders eliminating science from grade and high school courses. The process of dumb them up beat them down. Create Private schools to support the rich family's children and create private schools with strict control/limits on science and math to limit the eductional growth of the masses.

That makes sense at the moment of birth you have no belief or preconceived notion in anything closely resembling religion. I attended church as a baby wrapped in a blanket a toddler up and thru High school. I even taught Sunday school if my mother was sick. I believe the carnage we do in the name of religion as we do now is responsible for my negative feelings towards formalized religion. The Sunday school class material is preprinted and distributed by classes based on age group. The sermons are also pre printed in volumes of books and do allow some different options or angles depending on the audience or makeup of the church's congregation. I attended many churches and some of the people I respect the most are Church members but the closest knit families are often not Religious at all. I believe in America the White Financial Controlling families are seeing America truly becoming the melting pot of races religions and even belief systems converge and become the American majority instead of the lost and suppressed Minority. There fore the new laws blocking protests, Science taught in school, and freedom to gather and protest. This capability to suppress will be short lived as families will find ways to become a cohesive force. I don't hate Religion I hate the practices they utilize to scare and control the masses and its use for justification for world dominance. Those who live by the sword shall die by the sword. (Written by I know not who.)

The Sunday school class material is preprinted and distributed by classes based on age group.

I want to come up with my own Sunday school book to teach about the story of Noah. My book would have pictures that would realistically depict the situation. The boat would be banging into the bloated corpses of men, women, children, puppies, kittens, etc., all rotting in the hot sun while they wait for the water to magically disappear somewhere. Since there would be no where for the water to drain to, I would show a giant straw coming down from the heavens, with God on the other end syphoning it all away to some other planet where he borrowed it from in the first place. The ark would only have about one quarter of the animals still alive, since starvation would have caused the strongest ones to eat the weaker ones. The stench of death and feces would be visible in my book. Nobody would be smiling, unlike the many versions of this story you can buy at any Christian book store today, where everybody on board is happy and the water is calm, blue and clean. Is that wrong?

300 years later?????

Sounds like a humanist version.

I know of doctors who sold drugs illegally and committed murder. I know of educators who seduced students.

Should we therefore close all the medical schools and other schools?

Atheism/humanism is a kind of religion.

They do not believe in God. They believe in people.

Christianity was not started by Jesus who died a Jew and, contrary to the NT, was likely a harisee.

It was begun by Paul after Jesus' death.

Who said anything about closing any facilities, secular or religious?

Don't act dumb. You know what I mean.

How does he know? "Waz you there, Charlie?"

Frankly I think The Davinci Code is a better story.

Reasonably Related:

The angry atheist

"I think the late Christopher Hitchens screed against Mother Teresa, his unmanly attempt to pulverize the reputation of the Albanian nun who gave her life to tending Calcuttas dying poor, was the low point of his otherwise stellar output. It was a wretched addition to the bloated trying too hard or look at me school of contrarian commentary that illustrated, with needless vigour, the other sad category of anti-god apologetics the Im so angry other people are so stupid for believing in God and are therefore not as smart as me stream. (The comic Bill Maher occasionally travels himself with them, as per his movie, the puerile Religulous .)

Anger seems a common condition among this kind. Hitchens grim, self-advertising equal, Richard Dawkins, is a very bundle of anger and aggressiveness. Dawkins can be quite the toad, a kind of Don Rickles for unbelievers. He appears not so much as a person who subscribes to a particular philosophy or worldview as someone who cannot abide the thought that others do not wish to think the same as he. Theres something almost fanatic about the intensity with which he derides and insults Christians and other faiths (but, it seems to me, mostly Christians).

Such professional atheists also display an unseemly infatuation with being regarded as victims. When they are not being superior and angry, their more frequent pose, they are whining that their non-beliefs do not receive the respect or standing of their opposites. They cannot stand to be reminded of the mere presence of what they have absolutely no regard for. A strange posture." - fullcomment.nationalpost

You just introduced a glaring non sequitur, but I'm the dumb one for pointing out how irrelevant it was. Got it.

I get a kick out of people who think they can argue against the most purest forms of logic, as espoused by thinkers as advanced as Hitch, Dawkins and Harris. If you insist on calling them "angry", so be it, but there's no quicker way to make yourself look like an imbecile than to attempt to counter them with arguments for religious belief. Lol - calling Hitchens "unmanly" is a dead giveaway to how weakhis side of the dialogue is. That's just plain juvenile.

my personal preference is Christopher Hitchens

He will not be writing nor speaking anymore . Apparently "god" called him home ...

It is bad form to use the same smiley as the comment above you ...

I get a kick out of you Hal. The topic of the existence of some kind of supernatural deity has been discussed and argued going on for over 2,000 years, by some of the greatest minds in humankind, (none are represented here including yours truly) and ALWAYS to a stalemate.

What makes this age different is that the internet has brought on the era of the Angry Atheist. The AA is a master of epistemic closure and lauds his own logical capabilities as impeccable.a perfect example of the DunningKruger effect I might add.

The Angry Atheist can easily be separated from the normal atheist as they are the ones who actually go on the attack against religion. Im at a complete loss as to where they get their false assurance level; maybe some unknown form of morphic resonance, but Ive seen nothing new from this group that has not been said before.

The AA is not only angry, but many are so venomous in their attacks that reasonable people (regardless of their belief or non-belief status) get repulsed by their message.

In threads like this one, I have to recite to myself these letters NAAALT (Not All Atheists Are Like That). The majority of atheists are the live and let live types. I have atheist friends and I am certainly no fan of most organized religions. The Angry Atheists however are the ones who feel compelled to push themselves into people's personal religious decisions, if for no other reason than to be obnoxious.

Angry Atheists are the worst Catholics ever. Pope Francis

a) I said "Angry Atheist" not "outspoken" but that's quibbling. The Angry Atheist minions are not content with being merely outspoken, but they go out of his/her way to attack beliefs and become nuisances.

b) Having said that, many Christian sects do go out of their way to harass and attack atheists, like what the cartoon below demonstrates, taken from Jehovah Witness pamphlet. So in a manner of speaking, I can understand why some atheists may have a grudge against the in-your-face religious types.

As an atheist, I assume Mr. Atwill is someone with an agenda to make atheists look bad. A secret conspiracy totally unsupported by the historical record to prove that Christianity was made up by the Roman Empire, of all things? This is simply insulting to anyone with even a decent grounding in classical history.

One would be better off arguing Nero was a space alien, at least the historical record is silent on Nero being from Mars, rather than actively hostile like it is to this garbage. Seriously, this type of silliness is beneath the standards of the Weekly World News and other supermarket tabloids.

Did you read what I wrote? Its hard to imagine a more non responsive post.

I am an atheist, as I wrote above. But I believe Jesus probably existed. His existence is not the same thing as his divinity.

I also believe Gaius Marius lived. He was the most important man in the world while he was alive. He saved Rome from a Germanic invasion and was elected counsel 7 times. He was the most powerful man in the world yet there is no contemporary documentation that he ever lived. Everything we know about him was written after his death, some of it hundreds of years after he died/(Plutarch).

Considering how incredibly hard it is to find contemporaneous evidence about anyone from 2,000 years ago, I don't think its that surprising that there is no record of Jesus existing until 20 years after his death. If nothing survived about Marius, a man who commanded millions, why would you expect anything to survive about a guy with maybe a hundred followers? Also, why is there no record of the people who were alive when Jesus was alive claiming he never lived. Seems like Nero probably would have taken advantage of the fact that Jesus never existed when we was murdering Christians and trying to suppress the Church 25 years after Jesus died.

Outside of the bibleChrist mentioned in the time he was supposedly alive?

How many sources do you imagine exist from when he was supposedly alive?

Almost as brilliant as demanding evidence from sources that don't exist.

Outside of the bible, where is Christ mentioned in the time he was supposedly alive?

I recall reading about an historian who recorded the period in question since he lived through it . And his work did feature the life of Christ among other things .

Try harder please. "I remember once reading about a guy" is hardly a counter argument to those who have spent their careers verifying that indeed, there is no surviving evidencefrom any contemporaries of the Jesus character who even mentioned his name, until well after his death. People were busy writing about everything but Jesus, even though Jesus was supposedly performing profoundmiracles.

To be clear, there ARE PLENTY of surviving historical records from the period of Jesus, but there is NOTHING that mentions the miracle wielding Jesus character described in the scriptures. That is the point. People were writing about the mundane, when they could have been ensuring thatthe son of God would be accurately enshrined in the historical record.

I'm not a historian, and I don't have this information at my finger tips, nor is it a topic that a google search will spit out a workinganswer for. However, this has been a commonly debated topic by historians such as Bart Ehrman, and there is general acceptance in their ranks that much information has survived from the period in question, and that none of it references Jesus - particularly the Jesus character as described in scripture. Unlike now, Jesus was a common name in his era, and the name "Jesus" does get mentioned sporadically in these works, butthey clearly are not in reference to the miracle producing person claiming to be the son of God.

I recently finished a lecture series by Ehrman about the historical record of Jesus, that I obtained from the local library, where Ehrman runs through anabbreviated listof surviving worksfrom many contemporaries of Jesus,but I don't have the sort of recall required to recite it. If I still had it, I would provide that information. It's interesting to note, however, that Ehrman does not subscribe to the notion that Jesus was not a real person. He believes that there is enough post-Jesus referencefrom unrelated sources to corroborate some truth in his existence as a man, and that denial of his existence amounts to a conspiracy too broad to be plausible. However, the claims about Jesus are surely far fetched and steeped in folklore of the highest order.

For instance, in thefeeding ofthe multitudes, some 5,000 people (+/-)are said to have followed Jesus after the beheading of John the Baptist, where Jesus is said to have performed healings, blah blah blah - and then multiplied a small amount of fish and bread to feed the entire lot. Of course, this wasn't written about until decades later, so the mass feeding is simply attributed to the exulted one. Common sense, on the other hand, would assume that 5,000 people aren't about to take their families and leave their homes for an undetermined amount of time without at least some of them packing food for their journey. A wise leader, such as Jesus, would have had that food collected and parsed out among the crowd, which if he existed at all is likely what he did. Instead, we get some bullshit magic show, and people eat it up like gospel.

Try harder please.

To what end ? Your mind is already made up . Are you planning on reading the works of an ancient historian on my word ?

Are you planning on reading the works of an ancient historian on my word ?

I don't need to. Your vague comment flies in the face of what the community ofbiblical historians have generally come to agree upon.

I don't need to.

Thanks for displaying your arrogance in such an undisguised fashion ... closed mindedness too .

You're welcome(?)

PS - next time, try reading the whole comment ... if you can get past the fistfour words, it doesn't come across as arrogant at all.

the fist four words

Yup , that says it all .