Scholars unanimously agree that Jesus existed, was baptised and crucified. His followers had reason to believe that He rose from the dead as well.
You also left out explanation 0, which is that Jesus was conceived via the Holy Spirit. Jesus did have a Father - God. He is God from God. Joseph was also visited by an angel and I think we could probably take it as fact that they didn’t divorce (as we have records of Jesus being referred to a boy of Joseph) So no, this can’t cause a crisis of faith for a believer.
Miracles are called miracles for a reason- you are right that a virgin cannot give birth to a male without divine intervention (except from artificial insemination)
One Roman punishment if a slave killed their master was often that all slaves in the household were crucified. I imagine there were less women crucified overall and that it was less common, but I don’t think there’s evidence that women were exempted.
Because God is male. Man was created in God’s image, Jesus refers to God in heaven as Father, Jesus is a male (He was circumcised) and the Holy Spirit is also Male (as the Holy Spirit impregnated the Virgin Mary)
Matthew does have a “higher” Christology, but how does that mesh with Luke, Mark and John? Can we perhaps notice some patterns in when different gospels were likely written, and how there’s clear evidence of escalation in the claims about what Jesus was, as the texts get further and further away from his actual life?
If the Trinity and Jesus’s divinity are so clearly established in the text, why did it take centuries to come to an agreement on what Christ’s divine nature was? The gospels contradict each other.
The divinity of Jesus was affirmed at the first
Council of Nicea in 325ad. 3 people out of the 318 attendants denied Jesus’ divinity. It was already a consensus, the council was just to solidify it. It was hardly considered debatable. That’s like claiming that “If the bald eagle was America’s national bird since 1776, then why did it only get solidified in law in 2024”. The bald eagle wasn’t invented as the national bird in 2024, it was simply made official.
“Miracles” are only compelling to people who already believe.
They’re utterly unconvincing to anyone not indoctrinated, as proven by the fact that you don’t believe in Hindu, Buddhist, Mormon, or Muslim miracle accounts.
In this scenario, it was with someone who doesn’t believe.
And even then, if a dude performed a miracle in front of you like rising from the dead, wouldn’t you believe him?
I don’t believe in Hindu, Buddhist, Mormon or Muslim miracle accounts as I cannot find any compelling ones. I don’t believe in Islam because it completely contradicts the Bible whilst claiming the Bible is a correct revelation from God, and I don’t believe in white islam/mormonism because it hinges on one dude who was a known liar and con artist. Both of these prophets also conveniently lifted the polygamy rule. Hinduism claims Jesus is divine but just another way, while Jesus said He is the only way, and Buddhism claims Jesus was a good teacher and Bodhisvatta when Jesus Himself claimed to be God.
If you can find me compelling islamic, mormon, buddhist or hindu miracles, I’ll consider it.
Yours aren’t compelling either, you’ve just been indoctrinated otherwise.
If someone “raised from the dead” in front of me I’d need stacks and stacks of evidence to validate it, not merely a narrative from two thousand years ago where the author had an agenda to convince people that the laws of nature briefly stopped in a time when everyone believed in magic.
What do you have other than stories written a generation after the purported events by four anonymous authors that contradict in major story-breaking ways?
There are no “story-breaking” contradictions. The contradiction here is you claiming the authors had an agenda, but then they all contradicted. Which one is it?
And what else could I have? Should I expect there to be a 2000 year old VHS tape lying about?
Or should I be reasonable about it and expect an abnormal amount of written accounts for a society where paper or writing wasn’t cheap in which most notable people like kings and such have 1 or 2 accounts about them written centuries later, or archaeological evidence and writings from people who lived closer to the time and believed in the events?
They had different agendas, as each gospel account was written to a different audience. This is uncontroversial; are you really disputing this?
And they do have story-breaking contradictions. Why is Matthew the only account that mentions dead people rising and roaming the city when Jesus died? That sure seems like an important part of the story to me, and most certainly worthy of the one sentence that it takes to express. If you were reading four different accounts of a mugging and one of them said there were a bunch of zombies around but nobody else mentioned them, wouldn’t you find that a bit unbelievable?
Not if you’ve been indoctrinated to believe it in the first place. But again, why should anyone believe four anonymous contradicting accounts of a cult leader rising from the dead? It’s only compelling if you already believe it.
How many people have you converted from non-believers to Christians? Why do you think it’s so hard to convince people who weren’t brought up in the church?
And they do have story-breaking contradictions. Why is Matthew the only account that mentions dead people rising and roaming the city when Jesus died? That sure seems like an important part of the story to me, and most certainly worthy of the one sentence that it takes to express. If you were reading four different accounts of a mugging and one of them said there were a bunch of zombies around but nobody else mentioned them, wouldn’t you find that a bit unbelievable?
Either the others didn’t have enough paper to do so, knowledge of it, or didn’t see it as important. Matthew has already written it down anyway.
How many people have you converted from non-believers to Christians? Why do you think it’s so hard to convince people who weren’t brought up in the church?
Most of my Christian friends including my girlfriend were non believers who converted. I, personally, stopped practicing Christianity for a period of my life before re-examining my faith again and realising that yeah, it was rational and held up.
Either the others didn’t have enough paper to do so, knowledge of it, or didn’t see it as important. Matthew has already written it down anyway.
It sure seems like God could have remedied all of those, as the harmony of the Bible is often mis-cited as another miracle.
Most of my Christian friends including my girlfriend were non believers who converted.
I don’t believe you, because Christians have a habit of embellishing their stories. Every “former non-believer” I’ve ever met were really just non-practicing Christians who had been indoctrinated but fell away then later reaffirmed their faith for social reasons.
I’ve never heard a good rational reason based to believe any of it. You could change that, but I don’t think it’s a challenge that can be fulfilled because people don’t believe in religion for rational reasons, the do it for social reasons.
It’s a big reason why most people stay in the religion they were indoctrinated into: otherwise they’ll lose their social network and become ostracized. It’s why people join a religion: they want that social network.
I don’t believe you, because Christians have a habit of embellishing their stories. Every “former non-believer” I’ve ever met were really just non-practicing Christians who had been indoctrinated but fell away then later reaffirmed their faith for social reasons.
😂😂😂 Somebody likes to make assumptions
I don’t believe in your strawman interpretation of Christianity either, don’t worry.
Scholars unanimously agree that Jesus existed, was baptised and crucified. His followers had reason to believe that He rose from the dead as well.
You also left out explanation 0, which is that Jesus was conceived via the Holy Spirit. Jesus did have a Father - God. He is God from God. Joseph was also visited by an angel and I think we could probably take it as fact that they didn’t divorce (as we have records of Jesus being referred to a boy of Joseph) So no, this can’t cause a crisis of faith for a believer.
Miracles are called miracles for a reason- you are right that a virgin cannot give birth to a male without divine intervention (except from artificial insemination)
Why did God create a bespoke Y chromosome just for Jesus? Why couldn’t Jesus have been born female? What would that change?
Did they crucify women back then?
Yes, there is evidence that women were crucified.
One Roman punishment if a slave killed their master was often that all slaves in the household were crucified. I imagine there were less women crucified overall and that it was less common, but I don’t think there’s evidence that women were exempted.
Because God is male. Man was created in God’s image, Jesus refers to God in heaven as Father, Jesus is a male (He was circumcised) and the Holy Spirit is also Male (as the Holy Spirit impregnated the Virgin Mary)
Why is God male? Does God have a Y chromosome? Does God produce sperm? Does God have testes?
Where is your textual support for the trinity?
Matthew 28:19
Name is singular, and He is equating the Son and the Holy Spirit to the Father who is clearly God. Jesus also claims to be God numerous times.
Matthew does have a “higher” Christology, but how does that mesh with Luke, Mark and John? Can we perhaps notice some patterns in when different gospels were likely written, and how there’s clear evidence of escalation in the claims about what Jesus was, as the texts get further and further away from his actual life?
If the Trinity and Jesus’s divinity are so clearly established in the text, why did it take centuries to come to an agreement on what Christ’s divine nature was? The gospels contradict each other.
The divinity of Jesus was affirmed at the first Council of Nicea in 325ad. 3 people out of the 318 attendants denied Jesus’ divinity. It was already a consensus, the council was just to solidify it. It was hardly considered debatable. That’s like claiming that “If the bald eagle was America’s national bird since 1776, then why did it only get solidified in law in 2024”. The bald eagle wasn’t invented as the national bird in 2024, it was simply made official.
“Miracles” are only compelling to people who already believe.
They’re utterly unconvincing to anyone not indoctrinated, as proven by the fact that you don’t believe in Hindu, Buddhist, Mormon, or Muslim miracle accounts.
I disagree. I believe because I’ve witnessed miracles.
So have Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, Sikhs, Pagans, and witches.
So that’s clearly a bad way to know what’s true.
In this scenario, it was with someone who doesn’t believe.
And even then, if a dude performed a miracle in front of you like rising from the dead, wouldn’t you believe him?
I don’t believe in Hindu, Buddhist, Mormon or Muslim miracle accounts as I cannot find any compelling ones. I don’t believe in Islam because it completely contradicts the Bible whilst claiming the Bible is a correct revelation from God, and I don’t believe in white islam/mormonism because it hinges on one dude who was a known liar and con artist. Both of these prophets also conveniently lifted the polygamy rule. Hinduism claims Jesus is divine but just another way, while Jesus said He is the only way, and Buddhism claims Jesus was a good teacher and Bodhisvatta when Jesus Himself claimed to be God.
If you can find me compelling islamic, mormon, buddhist or hindu miracles, I’ll consider it.
You missed the whole point.
Yours aren’t compelling either, you’ve just been indoctrinated otherwise.
If someone “raised from the dead” in front of me I’d need stacks and stacks of evidence to validate it, not merely a narrative from two thousand years ago where the author had an agenda to convince people that the laws of nature briefly stopped in a time when everyone believed in magic.
What do you have other than stories written a generation after the purported events by four anonymous authors that contradict in major story-breaking ways?
There are no “story-breaking” contradictions. The contradiction here is you claiming the authors had an agenda, but then they all contradicted. Which one is it?
And what else could I have? Should I expect there to be a 2000 year old VHS tape lying about?
Or should I be reasonable about it and expect an abnormal amount of written accounts for a society where paper or writing wasn’t cheap in which most notable people like kings and such have 1 or 2 accounts about them written centuries later, or archaeological evidence and writings from people who lived closer to the time and believed in the events?
They had different agendas, as each gospel account was written to a different audience. This is uncontroversial; are you really disputing this?
And they do have story-breaking contradictions. Why is Matthew the only account that mentions dead people rising and roaming the city when Jesus died? That sure seems like an important part of the story to me, and most certainly worthy of the one sentence that it takes to express. If you were reading four different accounts of a mugging and one of them said there were a bunch of zombies around but nobody else mentioned them, wouldn’t you find that a bit unbelievable?
Not if you’ve been indoctrinated to believe it in the first place. But again, why should anyone believe four anonymous contradicting accounts of a cult leader rising from the dead? It’s only compelling if you already believe it.
How many people have you converted from non-believers to Christians? Why do you think it’s so hard to convince people who weren’t brought up in the church?
Either the others didn’t have enough paper to do so, knowledge of it, or didn’t see it as important. Matthew has already written it down anyway.
Most of my Christian friends including my girlfriend were non believers who converted. I, personally, stopped practicing Christianity for a period of my life before re-examining my faith again and realising that yeah, it was rational and held up.
It sure seems like God could have remedied all of those, as the harmony of the Bible is often mis-cited as another miracle.
I don’t believe you, because Christians have a habit of embellishing their stories. Every “former non-believer” I’ve ever met were really just non-practicing Christians who had been indoctrinated but fell away then later reaffirmed their faith for social reasons.
I’ve never heard a good rational reason based to believe any of it. You could change that, but I don’t think it’s a challenge that can be fulfilled because people don’t believe in religion for rational reasons, the do it for social reasons.
It’s a big reason why most people stay in the religion they were indoctrinated into: otherwise they’ll lose their social network and become ostracized. It’s why people join a religion: they want that social network.
😂😂😂 Somebody likes to make assumptions
I don’t believe in your strawman interpretation of Christianity either, don’t worry.