Biblical Criticism & History Forum - earlywritings.com

Rapture is apparently an inflammatory word.

Second Coming covers it, I think.

A reasonable question is when would people stop waiting for Jesus' return and the rapture? Three years? Five years? Certainly ten years would be enough to temper the hopes of the most fervent of believers. The more industrious and practical Christians would then document what they saw and/or learned...

Bravo!

The gospel writers were obviously literate. I'm sure they would have had some knowledge of the history of at least the century before their birth. From what source? According to the Steinsaltz Talmud, Jewish boys were taught Hebrew language only, and history was limited to that given in the Bible. ...

Would you say that the "default" mode on Josephus is to accept what he says unless there is FIRST-LEVEL evidence to the contrary?

If you want supportive evidence before believing what he writes, you are left with virtually nothing.

He has a lot of energy, I'll give him that.

Luke admits that he relied on eyewitnesses and other sources as veracious as he could determine. So we have an automatic "out" for any inaccuracies. For instance, Jesus' teaching the Second Temple as a young boy almost certainly came from Josephus- which he himself repeated in his' "...

Luke admits that he relied on eyewitnesses and other sources as veracious as he could determine. So we have an automatic "out" for any inaccuracies. For instance, Jesus' teaching the Second Temple as a young boy almost certainly came from Josephus- which he himself repeated in his' "L...

slightly OT- In looking at the characters in the history of the period, there are easily a dozen that would make for GREAT central characters in movies. In fact, Jesus is almost a throw-away secondary character in the secular grand scheme of things. We have the early Christians to thank for that. Th...

Welcome, Flatliner.

You are a breath of fresh air.

There is a lot of magical thinking and frank delusion on this board- and in the "Jesus" field in general.

Your work is cut out for you!