well now don't be so quick to believe the bold above
do some research...I did and I continue so to do..I have an inquiring mind haha and do not take things for granted, but having said that, I KNOW God is real. I tend to be logical in my thinking...rather than emotional but sadly too emotional in my relationships which is not good...anyway, if God were not real, we would have ended ourselves a long time ago
and I have many other reasons to why I believe but as they would be subjective in the sense they are anecdotal, I see no point in relaying them here and very very seldom do so
as to the illiteracy of the 'fishermen' it is also true that Jewish boys were subject to learning the first 5 books of the Bible apparently
they were no dummies falling for anything. how is it they knew to be expecting the Messiah? heresay?
I think you have to study up on the customs and beliefs of the day before falling for the writings of men like Ehrman and others
I don't know who you read...just pulling a self proclaimed once upon a time believer turned agnostic out of the net
Funny thing is that never ONCE have i said that God does not exist. I KNOW there is something. I just don't know if the bible is the story of that one something.
Let's say that they could read. Even if so, the texts that we have are all in Greek. Not Aramaic. Are you telling me these peasants went through the trouble of learning literature and composition skills, in a language totally different and alien to their native tongue? Not only did they have to be fluent, but they had to learn to compose literary works, which as you may know, it is no easy task. They are not 4 line stories like you'd get from a picture book.
Not to mention that all we truly have are copies, not a single original document. All of which are from the mid second century and later.
Ironically, the messiah that the Jews expect is nothing like Jesus. Isaiah 53, psalm 22, etc. never once mention the Christ, or messiah. We have ascribed those passages to fit "the messiah", in reality the actual context is far away from what we modern Christians believe them to be. It is quite laughable, I once saw a video of a dude walking around in Jerusalem, reading this passage to the Jewish people passing by in the streets, trying to see if they would realize that the Prophecy was hinting at Jesus. Poor guy, he meant well, but his ignorance is too much.
I've read all sorts. Erhman, carrier, Loftus, But I have also read Craig, C.S. Lewis, Licona. So Yeah, I am not just sticking to one side of the argument.
Most of the Christian apologists forget to be honest about contemporary contextual realities. They almost want us to believe that the world was the same back then as it is today, not to mention that they will avoid some topics that they know are extremely hard to reconcile.
