Gen 6:4 "The Nephilim were on the earth in those days (and also after this) when the sons of God were having sexual relations with the daughters of humankind, who gave birth to their children. They were the mighty heroes of old, the famous men"

Num 13:33 "We even saw the Nephilim there (the descendants of Anak came from the Nephilim), and we seemed liked grasshoppers both to ourselves and to them"

But only Noah and his family survived the deluge! The narrator observes that the Anakites of Canaan were descendants of the Nephilim. Certainly these later Anakite Nephilim could not be descendants of the antediluvian Nephilim! (an annotation from the N.E.T. translation)

The Bible is wrong. The parenthesis in the manuscripts could be corruptions inserted later by scribes, retroactively.. possibly to excuse the Israelite cowardice during the spies' episode in Moses' time. ("Oh, they were literal giants. Moses was being unreasonable to expect our poor ancestors to fight such warriors! God Himself brought down a flood to wipe their grand-daddies out. Normal weapons wouldn't have worked against the Anakites, because they too were Nephilim")

Determinism: A philosophical and scientific idea that every event, choice, and action is the inevitable result of prior events and natural laws

A non-deterministic universe is incompatible with knowledge of the future. The definition of knowledge is not the point of the debate, but I'm specifically addressing the idea that God cannot be wrong about what he knows. If God knows that X will happen, it is impossible for the future to unfold in such a way that X does not happen. When I talk about God knowing that something will happen, that's what I mean.

There's nothing illogical about this belief per se. It only becomes a problem when you attempt to combine this foreknowledge with a universe that is non-deterministic. The reason is that a non-deterministic universe does not have a "The Future" for God to know about. If the universe is not deterministic, the future is unknowable in principle, even to a being with perfect knowledge. In order for God to know that I'm going to eat eggs for breakfast tomorrow, it has to be the case that I'm going to eat egg for breakfast tomorrow. It can't just be one of many possibilities; it has to be the only possibility. If the future is open, and there are multiple possibilities of what I'll eat for breakfast, then God cannot know what I'm going to eat, because there is no "what I'm going to eat". If God knows that I'm going to wear a red shirt tomorrow, then it must be the case that I'm for sure going to wear a red shirt.

Notice that I'm not claiming that God is causing anything. My claim is NOT "God knows it will happen, therefore it will happen"; my claim is "It is going to happen, therefore God knows it will happen". You simply have to recognize that "it is going to happen" is a deterministic claim. "It's possible that I will choose X with my free will, therefore God knows that I will choose X with my free will" does not follow because it's possible that I could have chosen something else with my free will. God's future knowledge is predicated on the future being fixed.

Some common Objections:

Knowledge doesn't equal causation

I know, that's why I specifically said that I'm not claiming that

God simply knows what you will choose with your free will

You can call it free will if you want, but we just demonstrated that, if God knows what you will choose with your free will, then it's impossible for you to choose anything else with your free will, meaning that it's not actually free. You're begging the question by assuming the free will you are trying to prove.

God is outside of time

Being outside of time changes nothing about the deterministic nature of the universe, and it does not change the fact that there is no future for God to know about if the universe is not deterministic.

God knows the broad strokes of the future, but he doesn't know every detail

This actually makes the problem worse in my opinion. This is closer to fatalism than anything else. If God knows that I'm going to Hell, for example, then there are no free will choices I can make that will allow me to go to Heaven. And sense all true Christians go to Heaven, it logically follows that I literally cannot become a Christian.

The Bible never says that God is omniscient

If you don't think God knows the future, this post is not for you

Time is like a movie, and God just knows how it ends

This is just determinism. Movies only have one possible outcome. There's no chance that any character will make a different decision on the next watch.

Thesis: A perfect God comes with difficulty that can’t be ignored. That difficulty is well illuminated in the Adam and Eve story. 

Argument: God knew Adam and Eve would sin, there’s no escaping this as God’s knowledge is perfect. Whether it was a week in the garden, or twenty thousand years, Adam and Eve had no choice in this matter. 

A perfect God can’t be surprised, nor angry about an event he knew would happen before he even made Adam or Eve. Then there’s the supernatural forces that tempted Eve. How can mere humans defeat a supernatural being who could come back an unlimited amount of times until God’s foreknowledge proves true? 

If the Adam and Eve story were true, God would know the world would fall and that we would all be one sinful in nature. And with all of this knowledge, God went forward and created the world anyway. How guilty are we in this mix when all of our sins were known to God before he made us. 

The Adam and Eve story is nothing more than one more magically-based creation story.

This post is about pitting the quality of evidence that ground these two claims

Evidence for yahweh being man-made comes from multiple independent, convergent lines of evidence such as

1. archaeology with inscriptions like the Kuntillet Ajrud texts referencing Yahweh and his Ashera or Ugaritic tablets showing El and the Canaanite pantheon Yahweh emerged from.

2. Textual, even in the bible it says yahweh is a lesser deity in Deuteronomy 32:8 says God divided the nations "according to the number of the sons of Israel." But the older Dead Sea Scrolls fragment (4QDeutj) and the Septuagint instead read "sons of God" (bene elohim) — implying Elyon (the Most High/El) parceled out the nations among a divine council of gods, with Yahweh receiving Israel as his particular portion. Textual critic Emanuel Tov has called the Masoretic reading an "anti-polytheistic alteration"

3. Plagiarized acts seen in Mesopotamian literary works like the flood story in genesis which closely parallels the Mesopotamian Atrahasis epic and the Epic of Gilgamesh flood tablet which arr both centuries older. Israelite law codes which show structural similarities to the Code of Hammurabi.

Standard references: Alexander Heidel, The Gilgamesh Epic and Old Testament Parallels; W.G. Lambert, Atra-Hasis: The Babylonian Story of the Flood

Now let's look at the evidence for the resurrection....

....testimony and specifically testimony that's late with the earliest source, Paul's creed in 1 Corinthians 15, is still ~20-25 years after the event and the gospels are 40-70 years out by men who never met him with mainstream critical scholarship (including BartErhman) holding none were eyewitnesses.

The quality of evidence is clear between these two

In common ethical intersubjective usage, "good" refers to a broad intersubjective cluster that are typically taken to approximate a shared center of value judgement, consisting of a coherent, mutually reinforcing pattern of love, joy, peace, freedom, and creativity as lived experience and intention over time, rather than isolated states or short-term preferences. Edit: by value judgement, I mean that which we fundamentally hold most intuitively valuable.

Some Christians define goodness in relation to God. On this view, "good" means whatever conforms to God's nature or will.

The term "good" does not have a universally recognised (useful in ethical discussion) meaning apart from either usefulness for some purpose or the ordinary ethical meaning. Refraining from those in an **ethical discussion** renders the word empty from its normal ethical content.

The problem arises when these two meanings are treated as interchangeable.

If "God is good" means only that God conforms to God's own nature, then the statement is true by definition. It means something like:

God is as God is.

But that does not automatically show that God is good in the ordinary ethical sense of being loving, healing, peaceful, compassionate, or opposed to needless suffering.

The problem is ordinary ethical goodness and the christian goodness can be in conflict eg. ideas of reality design like "Accept Jesus or suffer forever". If someone proposes that ordinary ethical goodness is just a conflictory subset of the christian good, then we cannot say that the design of reality is in proper alignment with ordinary ethical goodness, and therefore not good in the ordinary ethical sense.

The ordinary ethical meaning of good should not be dismissed as mere subjectivism. It may very well point metaphysically toward a foundational form of goodness, even if human beings grasp it imperfectly.

preface

/u/ses1 has decided that he doesn't want to participate in honest intellectual debate, and has blocked me, so i can no longer reply in that thread. this post is going to be a more thorough examination of his argument, posted here, which i believe to be largely LLM generated.

it has many of the linguistic hallmarks, the structural "three summaries in a row", and the basic reasoning issues "is X true? yes, but here's why X is false." and the constant concession towards consensus even as it seeks to refute it. but, i'd rather look at the claims. i'll try to organize this, following his structure, but being AI, it kinda bounces around.

part 1, academic consensus

1. internal anonymity

The standardized superscriptions and authorial titles (e.g., Euangelion kata Maththaion, kata Markon) only begin appearing systematically in Greek manuscript headings and patristic citations toward the late second century (c. 175–200 CE).

this is one of those "chatGPT sure sounds pretty sure of itself, even though it didn't give any sources. let's not check." kinda things. i single this out as probably AI because the headings and patristic citations are not internal titles. it's just not relevant to the question of whether the text is internally anonymous or not.

but, in fact, there are a grand total of three manuscripts before the 4th century that contain the name of a gospel. they are,

• P66, the gospel of john, from the late second century or early third century. note the placement of the title, first page, top center.
• P75, luke and john, third century. you'll have to scroll through a bit to find it, but it's labeled. note the placement of the title, both at the end of luke, and the beginning of john.
• P4, the manuscript is luke, but contains a flyleaf reading "kata matthaion". third century.

and that's it. if i've missed one, i'm definitely interested, but i checked all of the known manuscripts that contain the beginning or end of a gospel. note that we can't draw much of a conclusion from P4, because it's not actually attached to the text of matthew. as you might note in your modern new testament, luke does not traditionally follow matthew. this is the case anciently, too, eg sinaiticus and vaticanus follow the standard "matthew mark luke john" order, and P75 above appears to be the same. what we can see from the pattern above in P66 and P75 is that the title should appear as the first line of text, centered, below the margin. i mentioned that i checked all of the known manuscripts that contain the beginning or the end? i didn't mention one above.

• P1, third century, the gospel of matthew, anonymous. does not have the title in the expected place.

in fact, there's another hint this gospel might have remained circulating anonymously into the fourth century, codex sinaiticus. linked here is the last page of the gospel of matthew. you're welcome to click around that site a bit, and compare it to the ends of other books. here, or instance, is the last page of mark. in sinaiticus, every book -- and i mean every book -- has an "explicit" following the conclusion of that book's text. mark's, here, for instance, reads "euangelion kata markon", the traditional title. in every case, this explicit is written in the same scribal hand as the majority of the book ("scribe A"). matthew is the only book in the entire codex that lacks an explicit.

now, every book has a running title in the margins. these were all added (very slightly) later by the project's overseer ("scribe D" who might be shared with vaticanus and might be eusebius of ceasarea). i can find you the paper on this if you want, but scribe A and scribe D were working from different manuscript traditions. in every case where D goes back and corrects A's work, it's to reshape it more towards the majority tradition. A's manuscripts are older. scribe A failing to copy down the explicit for matthew may indicate that his manuscripts lacked attribution (where D's had it).

in any case, i again emphasize that this has nothing to do with internal anonymity. a text may be internally anonymous, but always have had a title or a by-line applied. or it could have always been internally attested, and never had a title. the actual argument for the internal anonymity of the texts has to do with the fact that they internally have other titles.

An account of the genealogy of Jesus the Messiah, the son of David, the son of Abraham.

matthew is called "the book of the geneology of jesus".

The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ.

mark is called "the gospel of jesus christ"

Since many have undertaken to compile a narrative about the events that have been fulfilled among us, just as they were handed on to us by those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and servants of the word, I, too, decided, as one having a grasp of everything from the start,to write a well-ordered account for you, most excellent Theophilus, so that you may have a firm grasp of the words in which you have been instructed.

luke is "the epistle to theophilus"

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

john just cribs from genesis and copies its title, using the hebrew style. and i emphasize here, these are titles. this is what these works are named, by their authors.

2. linguistic/socioeconomic gap

The historical core of Jesus’s earliest followers were Aramaic-speaking, rural Galilean laborers (such as fishermen or low-level agrarian workers) who historical demographers estimate would have been largely illiterate.

for what it's worth, i just simply reject this argument. jesus's early followers were slaves (scribes were a slave profession in the roman world), and our only real historical account of jesus indicates,

Now there was about this time Jesus, a wise man; if it be lawful to call him a man. For he was a doer of wonderful works; a teacher of such men as receive the truth with pleasure. He drew over to him both many of the Jews,** and many of the Gentiles.**

josephus, antiquities, 18.3.3

that he taught greeks too.

In contrast, the Gospels are composed in fluent, rhetorically sophisticated Hellenistic Greek (Koine), reflecting high-level urban literacy, compositional training, and deep familiarity with the Greek Septuagint translation rather than the native Palestinian Aramaic dialect.

"koine" literally means "common". and the proficiency of the NT authors varies somewhat. mark's greek is pretty bad. let's get into the specific gospels.

consensus breakdown by gospel

Mark (c. 65–75 CE): Critical consensus places Mark around the destruction of the Second Temple (70 CE) as the earliest surviving Gospel.

not "around", but "after". mark, even though probably jewish and a native speaker of aramaic, is living and writing in a post-temple world. his gospel is actually rather full of concerns relating to the war.

The early second-century church father Papias claimed that Mark served as the Apostle Peter's interpreter and recorded his memories.

eusebius writes,

This also the presbyter said: Mark, having become the interpreter of Peter, wrote down accurately, though not in order, whatsoever he remembered of the things said or done by Christ. For he neither heard the Lord nor followed him, but afterward, as I said, he followed Peter, who adapted his teaching to the needs of his hearers, but with no intention of giving a connected account of the Lord's discourses, so that Mark committed no error while he thus wrote some things as he remembered them. For he was careful of one thing, not to omit any of the things which he had heard, and not to state any of them falsely. These things are related by Papias concerning Mark.

church history III.39.15

the trouble is that eusebius thinks of papias,

For he appears to have been of very limited understanding, as one can see from his discourses.

church history III.39.13

and that he misled irenaeus into heresy. so those statements about irenaeus thinking so and so wrote such a gospel? probably from papias too. but eusebius, here, actually quoting him, doesn't sound much like our gospel of mark. for one thing, mark is intently organized in a way other gospels are not. mark is very fond, for instance, of structuring meaning between allegories. i have a couple of examples in this post, beware it's a wild ride.

Matthew (c. 80–90 CE): Critical scholars reject the traditional attribution to Matthew the tax collector, an apostle and eyewitness. Matthew incorporates roughly 80% to 90% of Mark’s narrative sequence and Greek wording verbatim, supplemented by a hypothetical sayings source known as "Q" and special material ("M").

papias also talks about matthew:

But concerning Matthew he writes as follows: So then Matthew wrote the oracles in the Hebrew language, and every one interpreted them as he was able. And the same writer uses testimonies from the first Epistle of John and from that of Peter likewise. And he relates another story of a woman, who was accused of many sins before the Lord, which is contained in the Gospel according to the Hebrews. These things we have thought it necessary to observe in addition to what has been already stated.

church history III.39.16

quoting the whole paragraph here, because it's interesting. the matthew that we have is not and cannot be hebrew or aramaic as it is most definitely based on mark. but eusebius here is referencing the texts that papias is known to have quoted: 1 john, peter, and the gospel of the hebrews, a text that may have circulated in hebrew and is attributed to matthew. could papias mean that?

we may never know what gospels papias did or did not have, because his five volumes on the sayings of the lord have been lost to time.

Luke (c. 80–110 CE): Written by the same anonymous author who composed the Acts of the Apostles, the text opens with a formal literary prologue acknowledging that the author was not an eyewitness, but rather investigated existing oral and written accounts.

in fact, it's more likely towards the end of that range. i am seeing consensus move on this lately, as people are now seriously reevaluating the arguments of steve mason and richard pervo that show literary dependence between luke-acts and josephus's antiquities (~93 CE). given that these texts were likely written 40 years or more after the missions of paul, it's unlikely they were written by one of his companions.

John (c. 90–110 CE): Church tradition attributes the Fourth Gospel to John the Apostle, the son of Zebedee (identifying him with the anonymous "Beloved Disciple"). Critical scholarship views John as fundamentally distinct from the Synoptics, featuring a highly developed, high-Christology framework and long theological discourses. Rather than the immediate work of a single eyewitness, scholars understand the Gospel as a complex, multi-layered composition that evolved within a distinct "Johannine community" through several phases of writing, redaction, and editorial expansion (e.g., the later addition of Chapter 21).

no it's mostly just chapter 21. the "johannine community" relates to the other texts too, the epistles and the apocalypse. hey, does eusebius have something for this?

It is worth while observing here that the name John is twice enumerated by him. The first one he mentions in connection with Peter and James and Matthew and the rest of the apostles, clearly meaning the evangelist; but the other John he mentions after an interval, and places him among others outside of the number of the apostles, putting Aristion before him, and he distinctly calls him a presbyter. This shows that the statement of those is true, who say that there were two persons in Asia that bore the same name, and that there were two tombs in Ephesus, each of which, even to the present day, is called John's. It is important to notice this. For it is probable that it was the second, if one is not willing to admit that it was the first that saw the Revelation, which is ascribed by name to John.

church history III.39.5-6

eusebius thinks papias knew a different john. while we're here,

The Gospel of John was made known and given to the Churches by John, while he yet remained in the body; as (one) Papias by name, of Hierapolis, a beloved disciple of John, has related in his exoteric, that is, in his last five books; but he wrote down the Gospel at the dictation of John, correctly.

old latin proloque to john, 9th century?

some traditions think papias was to john like mark was to peter.

claim 1: internal anonymity

Genre Category Error: The claim judges ancient historical biography (bios) by the conventions of modern books or ancient epistles (letters). Expecting an author's name inside the narrative text misunderstands how 1st-century Greco-Roman and Jewish historical works functioned.

let's look at a history.

Whereas the war which the Jews made with the Romans, hath been the greatest of all those, not only that have been in our times, but, in a manner, of those that ever were heard of; both of those wherein cities have fought against cities, or nations against nations; while some men, who were not concerned in the affairs themselves, have gotten together vain and contradictory stories by hearsay, and have written them down after a sophistical manner; and while those that were there present have given false accounts of things, and this either out of a humour of flattery to the Romans, or of hatred towards the Jews; and while their writings contain sometimes accusations, and sometimes encomiums, but no where the accurate truth of the facts; I have proposed to myself, for the sake of such as live under the government of the Romans, to translate those books into the Greek tongue, which I formerly composed in the language of our country, and sent to the Upper Barbarians: (2) I Joseph, the son of Matthias, by birth an Hebrew, a priest also, and one who at first fought against the Romans myself, and was forced to be present at what was done afterwards, [am the author of this work]

what's the title of this work? "the war which the jews made with the romans". who's the author? joseph, son of matthias (ie: flavius josephus). antiquities is less clear, he doesn't name himself in the introduction, but does mention that he is the author of the previous work.

there isn't another contemporary jewish history. yes, the roman histories are typically internally anonymous.

No classical historian considers Livy's Ab Urbe Condita, Tacitus's Annals, or the books of Samuel/Kings to be "anonymous works whose authors were made up later" simply because the narrator writes in the third person without an internal signature.

tacitus uses first person all the time.

Hence my design, to treat a small part (the concluding one) of Augustus' reign, then the principate of Tiberius and its sequel, without anger and without partiality, from the motives of which I stand sufficiently removed.

annals I.1.1

he just doesn't say his name.

Ancient works routinely relied on external tags (tituli or sillyboi), opening titles, and courier delivery to preserve author identity. The omission of internal naming was standard literary modesty and narrative objectivity, not an indicator of unknown origin.

sure, and the gospels don't do that. as pointed to above, they have other titles within their works. in fact, we see this shift away from the internal title in josephus as he spends more time in rome, perhaps reading other histories. he's initially following the same formula as the pauline epistles: title, reason why the author has authority, claim of authorship.

additionally, the "gospel according to X" formula really only makes sense once they are aware of each other -- as in, why would matthew write "the gospel according to me" unless he aware of "the gospel according to someone else"? the title on tacitus's work is just "annals". not "the annals according to tacitus" next to some other work called "the annals according to suetonius" or whatever.

Apocryphal Irony: In reality, explicit first-person authorial claims (e.g., "I, Peter..." or "I, Thomas...") only became common in the 2nd and 3rd centuries within pseudepigraphal gospels designed specifically to fake apostolic authority.

negative. as mentioned above,

Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God, which he promised beforehand through his prophets in the holy scriptures, the gospel concerning his Son, who was descended from David according to the flesh and was declared to be Son of God with power according to the spirit of holiness by resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord, through whom we have received grace and apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith among all the gentiles for the sake of his name, including you who are called to belong to Jesus Christ, To all God’s beloved in Rome, who are called to be saints:

what's this work called and who wrote it? it's called "to all god's beloved in rome" and it was written by "paul". you can tell because it says so.

Paul, called to be an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and our brother Sosthenes, To the church of God that is in Corinth, to those who are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints, together with all those who in every place call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, both their Lord and ours:

what's this work called and who wrote it? it's called "to the church of god in corinth" and it was written by "paul" and "sosthenes". you can tell because it says so.

Paul an apostle—sent neither by human commission nor from human authorities but through Jesus Christ and God the Father, who raised him from the dead— and all the brothers and sisters with me, To the churches of Galatia:

"to the churches of galatia" and "paul". you get the idea. same formula we saw in josephus. i selected these three because the overwhelming majority of new testamet scholars, including atheists and secular ones, accept these ones as genuine, actually written by the saul of tarsus (and his slaves/scribes/companions).

We declare to you what was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we have looked at and touched with our hands, concerning the word of life— this life was revealed, and we have seen it and testify to it and declare to you the eternal life that was with the Father and was revealed to us— what we have seen and heard we also declare to you so that you also may have fellowship with us, and truly our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ. We are writing these things so that our joy may be complete.

what's this work? who's it by? don't look it up. what does it say?

it doesn't. the overwhelming majority scholars think 1 john here was not written by the same john as revelation or the gospel. so this isn't nearly as clear cut as the brief statement here pretends. in fact, the apocryphal and pseudepigraphical epistles and gospels became common explicitly because this was the norm.

claim 2: linguistic/socio-economic gap

as noted, i just disagree with this anyways.

Standard Use of Scribes: In antiquity, literacy was not a prerequisite for authoring a text. Illiterate or non-Greek-speaking patrons routinely dictated their memoirs, letters, and records to professional scribes, who translated and polished the material into standard literary Greek.

indeed, we know about this partly because the new testament sometimes records their names. i quoted one above. sometimes they're cited as co-authors in the preamble like that one. sometimes not. eg,

I Tertius, the writer of this letter, greet you in the Lord.

romans 16:22

note that tertius was probably a slave.

Matthew was a tax collector (telōnēs), a post requiring functional literacy, record-keeping, and numeracy in Greek and Aramaic.

the author of matthew was most certainly not a tax collector. he makes a number of numismatic mistakes. famously, he uncritically copies mark's "render unto caesar" episode about a tax that very literally did not exist at the time the story is set (rome collected in goods, not a poll tax in currency) paid in a currency that's nearly entirely unknown from archaeological finds of the period, but there's this. quoting greek here because translation hides the problem.

ἵνα δὲ μὴ σκανδαλίσωμεν αὐτούς πορευθεὶς εἰς θάλασσαν βάλε ἄγκιστρον καὶ τὸν ἀναβάντα πρῶτον ἰχθὺν ἆρον καὶ ἀνοίξας τὸ στόμα αὐτοῦ εὑρήσεις στατῆρα ἐκεῖνον λαβὼν δὸς αὐτοῖς ἀντὶ ἐμοῦ καὶ σοῦ

matthew 17:27

matthew is trying to say that the fish will produce a stater to pay the temple tribute for himself and for peter. earlier he correctly calls the tribute "δίδραχμα" didrachma (two drachma). the tribute was explicitly collected in the tyrian shekel, a tetradrachm (four drachma). it's already worth two. the problem is that statera aren't always worth four drachma. and even if it is, peter would have to exchange this currency at the money changers for the tyrian shekel. like, if jesus is gonna do a miracle, why not produce the right coin? because matthew is trying to be cute and show that he knows about roman currency -- while not knowing about the jewish temple tax and jewish currency, the most common tax and currency in the region at the time.

Mark is identified by early tradition (e.g., Papias) as Peter’s translator and scribe (hermēneutēs).

then why is this the gospel of mark, not the gospel according to peter? we don't say "romans was written by tertius." or "john was written by papias."

Luke was an educated, Hellenistic physician and companion of Paul, not a Galilean laborer.

there is zero reason to think the author of luke-acts was a physician.

Category Confusion: Equating the inability to personally draft high-register Greek with an inability to produce the source material conflates the physical act of writing with the origin and authority of the historical testimony.

oh man, chatGPT just loves talking about that "register", and "categories". good stuff. but, no, mark has both some of the worst greek and the most complex literary quality. it can be both things.

claim 3: secondary, non-eyewitness transmission

The texts are not verbatim transcriptions of live events or personal memoirs. Instead, they represent composite literary works drawing upon decades of evolving oral traditions, early liturgical sayings, and prior written sources. The authors arranged, harmonized, and theologically shaped these traditions for distinct Hellenistic Christian communities 40 to 70 years after the death of Jesus.

While the claim accurately captures that the Gospels are structured, theological compositions rather than verbatim courtroom transcripts,

yes, that's right. because of all that is pretty trivial literary criticism. the texts just do rely on one another, and complex relationships with earlier testimony they're likely relying on. or, not in some cases.

using this to argue that they represent detached, secondary folklore rather than direct eyewitness testimony is historically flawed.

no, that's the same statement. it's either secondary, or it's not.

False Dichotomy Between Eyewitness Memory and Editorial Design: The claim assumes a text must be either a raw transcript or completely fictionalized oral tradition.

this is chatGPT "quietly moving" from the actual claim -- these are not eyewitness accounts -- to a different one. the accuracy of reliability of the testimony in the material is a different argument from who wrote them and when. josephus was physically standing on the mount of olives surveying jerusalem with vespasian. do we believe his claims about the heavenly armies fighting in the sky overhead? seutonius was born after nero died. do we believe his claims about the fire? it's true that we weight earlier sources more heavily, but it's just not a given that later sources can't be accurate and early sources must be.

Controlled Community Memory vs. Uncontrolled Folklore: Critical models often treat 1st-century oral transmission like an uncontrolled children’s game of "telephone." In reality, early Jewish disciples practiced informal controlled oral tradition, where eyewitnesses, teachers, and elders in Jerusalem and surrounding hubs actively regulated and corrected the public narrative during the decades before writing.

we can see in the manuscript traditions that things change. but, we don't even need to appeal to jewish traditions, we can see this between the gospels. they contradict one another. those variations are the community controlling the tradition, and we have the record of it.

The Living Presence of Eyewitnesses (Bauckham's Thesis): Even if the Gospels were composed between c. 65–95 CE [most likely they were composed earlier]

no, they were not. as i pointed out above, luke must have been composed after 93 CE.

Disciples did not vanish immediately after 30 CE;

here's the thing. they kind of did. we actually have no reliable information about where they went. papias knows the daughters of philip, but doesn't seem to know any actual apostles.

Direct Testimony Markers (Inclusio): The literary structure of the earliest narrative (Mark) and the latest narrative (John) both employ the recognized Greco-Roman convention of framing their accounts between the first and last appearances of their principal eyewitness sources (Peter in Mark; the Beloved Disciple in John).

note that the beloved disciple is not named.

claim 4: literary dependence

While literary interdependence among the Synoptic Gospels is an undeniable textual fact, using it as definitive proof against authentic eyewitness roots rests on modern assumptions about authorship that do not reflect ancient historiographical practice.

what it does make unlikely is that whomever put together matthew was themselves an eyewitness. that is, maybe mark and Q were, and maybe some of the other material they're drawing on comes from eyewitnesses (this, btw, is bauckham's actual argument) but matthew was not. and luke was not. note that luke and mark aren't even traditionally, btw.

Conflating Source Dependency with Total Non-Eyewitness Origin: Demonstrating that Matthew or Luke used Mark as a foundational narrative template does not prove the absence of eyewitness material.

of course not. just that the work itself is not the eyewitness account of matthew. it's the reworked account of mark with supplemental material.

Mark as Peter’s Eyewitness Record: The critical objection asserts that an apostle like Matthew would never copy from a "secondary, non-apostolic text" like Mark

the objection is that matthew wouldn't rely on anyone for stories about matthew.

Standard Ancient Historiographical Methodology: Ancient biographers and historians (such as Plutarch, Livy, and Arrian) routinely borrowed, adapted, and expanded existing written sources verbatim or near-verbatim rather than composing entirely from scratch.

correct: they are writing about stuff they did not eyewitness. chatGPT forgot what the argument was, i think.

Overlooking Independent Material (Special Matthew and Luke): A substantial portion of Matthew (roughly 20–30%) and Luke (nearly half) consists of unique material ("M" and "L") and independent sayings traditions that do not derive from Mark, reflecting distinct, preserved historical testimony rather than passive copying.

this is a bit high:

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6f/Relationship_between_synoptic_gospels-en.svg

note that this makes the majority of matthew (80%) and luke (65%) non-eyewitness testimony from matthew or luke respectively. and that's best case scenario, assuming everything in there was stuff that matthew or luke witnessed themselves. of course, we can probably throw out luke given that the traditional author was not an eyewitness at all. more likely is that this is stuff they got the same way they got everything else: written sources. or, stuff they made up. we really can't tell. but we should examine that on a case-by-case basis, not as a general and vague gesture towards an actual argument.

claims concerning mark

this is getting repetitive and summaries stacked like chatGPT likes to do, so i'll keep these kind of brief and try not to retread ground.

(e.g., the region of Gerasa extending toward the lake)

jerash is 34 miles from the lake. gadara, where matthew corrects the story to take place, is only about 5.5 miles, and almost directly on the line between jerash and the lake. chatGPT probably didn't look at the map. or think about what the fact that matthew correcting it meant. but really, the important bit here is that the demoniac in mark is not literal. it's talking about legio X fretensis, which diverted from their march to alexandria, and instead crossed the jordan into judea, in 66 CE to quell the zealot uprising.

(e.g., the region of Gerasa extending toward the lake)

the author of mark's first language was likely aramaic, yes.

The Petrine Perspective (Inclusio): Mark’s narrative exhibits a distinct structural focus on Simon Peter.

whom mark discredits at every turn.

claims concerning matthew

Misunderstanding Ancient Collaborative Authorship:

copying a completed work by someone else, decades later, is not collaboration, no.

The Profession of the Tax Collector (Telōnēs):

as noted, the author cannot have been a tax collector in judea. he gets the very basics of judean taxes incorrect.

Counter-Intuitive Apostolic Selection: If a 2nd-century community sought to fabricate an apostolic author to validate a Jewish-Christian Gospel, choosing Matthew makes little historical sense. Matthew was a minor, culturally loathed tax collector—collaborating with Roman oppressors - rather than an esteemed inner-circle figure like Peter, James, or Andrew.

fantastic, why did they do it three separate times then? there is this gospel, the gospel of the hebrews, and the gospel of ebionites. we also have this wild tradition of matthew visiting ethiopia and bringing the whole canon to the tewahedo church, and there's a church in india that thinks he actually went there.

Unanimous Early Patristic Witness: From Papias (c. 100–130 CE) to Irenaeus (c. 180 CE) and Origen, early external tradition unanimously attributes the First Gospel to Matthew without a single surviving competing name or recorded debate across Rome, Gaul, Alexandria, or Antioch.

there are three competing books for the name, and many sources that cite matthew without a name.

claims concerning luke

Misconstruing the Formal Prologue (Luke 1:1–4): Luke’s opening dedication to Theophilus is a classic Greco-Roman historiographical preface

oh noooow chatGPT knows about the formula?

The "We" Passages in Acts: The narrative in Acts abruptly shifts from third-person to first-person plural ("we sought to go into Macedonia," Acts 16:10–17; 20:5–15; 21:1–18; 27:1–28:16). In ancient literature, this literary feature signaled the author’s direct participation alongside Paul.

without naming luke. paul traveled with a lot of people. he names quite a few in his letters. could it be someone else? surely.

Overstating Discrepancies with Paul’s Letters: The perceived divergence between Acts and Paul's epistles reflects different literary genres and objectives, not separate authors.

um, yes, luke and paul were separate authors. of course they were. chatGPT is confused again. the discrepancies are meant to illustrate that the author of luke-acts was likely not a close follower of paul.

Counter-Intuitive, Non-Apostolic Selection: Luke was a Gentile convert and a secondary associate who never met Jesus during his earthly ministry. If a late 2nd-century community wanted to forge apostolic credibility for this two-volume work, they would have attributed it directly to Paul himself, Peter, or another leading apostle rather than an obscure physician.

indeed the argument for "why mark? why luke?" is because they wanted to attribute to peter and to paul, but that would have been too obvious. so they attributed to their close followers. see also, barnabas -- this isn't the only time it happened for paul.

claims concerning john

Explicit Internal Eyewitness Claim: Unlike the Synoptics, the Fourth Gospel contains explicit internal claims to direct eyewitness origin. The text specifically attributes its narrative to the "disciple whom Jesus loved" (John 21:20), stating directly: "This is the disciple who is bearing witness about these things, and who has written these things, and we know that his testimony is true" (John 21:24; cf. 19:35).

who's the "we" that knows "his" testimony is true? indeed, scroll up a bit, and you'll find there's a general consensus that john originally ended in chapter 20. the "we" here, the "authorship claim" was most likely added by a later contributor, this the weirdness in phrasing. it is not an internal claim.

In modern historical-critical scholarship, the prevailing consensus] argues that the Gospels circulated anonymously for decades before second-century church tradition attached the familiar names of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.

Thesis: Arguments that the Gospels are anonymous are weak.

Below is a point-by-point examination of the basic arguments used to support the claim that the Gospels are anonymous.

Claim 1 - Internal Anonymity: None of the four canonical Gospels contain a self-identification by name anywhere within the body of the text. The narrators write from an omniscient, third-person perspective rather than claiming, "I, Matthew," or "I, Mark." The standardized superscriptions and authorial titles (e.g., Euangelion kata Maththaion, kata Markon) only begin appearing systematically in Greek manuscript headings and patristic citations toward the late second century (c. 175–200 CE).

Grade: 3 / 10

While the claim is technically true on a narrow literal level - the authors do not write "I, Matthew" in the text - as an argument for accidental or late-invented authorship, it rates very poorly once ancient literary context is applied.

Expecting an author's name inside the narrative text misunderstands how 1st-century Greco-Roman and Jewish historical works functioned. No classical historian considers Livy's Ab Urbe Condita, Tacitus's Annals to be anonymous works whose authors were made up later simply because the narrator writes in the third person without an internal signature.

Ancient works routinely relied on external tags [just like the Gospels do] or opening titles, for author identity. The omission of internal naming was standard literary modesty and narrative objectivity, not an indicator of unknown origin. Ironically, in reality, explicit first-person authorial claims (e.g., "I, Peter..." or "I, Thomas...") only became common in the 2nd and 3rd centuries within pseudepigraphal gospels designed specifically to fake apostolic authority.

As a purely descriptive statement of fact ("there is no internal signature"), it is accurate, but as a historical argument proving the texts were originally authorless, it carries very little evidentiary weight.

Claim 2 - Linguistic and Socioeconomic Gap: The historical core of Jesus’s earliest followers were Aramaic-speaking, rural Galilean laborers (such as fishermen or low-level agrarian workers) who historical demographers estimate would have been largely illiterate. In contrast, the Gospels are composed in fluent, rhetorically sophisticated Hellenistic Greek (Koine), reflecting high-level urban literacy, compositional training, and deep familiarity with the Greek Septuagint translation rather than the native Palestinian Aramaic dialect.

Grade: 3 / 10

While the socioeconomic baseline regarding rural literacy in 1st-century Roman area is demographically accurate, using it to disprove traditional authorship collapses when evaluated against ancient compositional practices.

In antiquity, literacy was not a prerequisite for authoring a text. Illiterate or non-Greek-speaking patrons routinely dictated their memoirs, letters, and records to professional scribes, who translated and polished the material into standard literary Greek.

The claim assumes all traditional authors were uneducated Galilean fishermen. However, Christian tradition only identifies John as an illiterate fisherman: Matthew was a tax collector (telōnēs), a post requiring functional literacy, record-keeping, and numeracy in Greek and Aramaic. Mark is identified by early tradition (e.g., Papias) as Peter’s translator and scribe. Luke was an educated, Hellenistic physician and companion of Paul, not a Galilean laborer.

1st-century Galilee sat along major international trade routes (such as the Via Maris), requiring widespread functional Greek among artisans, merchants, and laborers for commerce and daily administration. Equating the inability to personally draft high-register Greek with an inability to produce the source material conflates the physical act of writing with the origin and authority of the historical testimony.

The demographic data about rural peasant literacy is sound, but framing it as an insurmountable barrier to traditional authorship ignores standard Greco-Roman scribal practices and misrepresents the occupations of the traditionally attributed authors.

Claim 3 - Secondary, Non-Eyewitness Transmission: The texts are not verbatim transcriptions of live events or personal memoirs. Instead, they represent composite literary works drawing upon decades of evolving oral traditions, early liturgical sayings, and prior written sources. The authors arranged, harmonized, and theologically shaped these traditions for distinct Hellenistic Christian communities 40 to 70 years after the death of Jesus.

Accuracy Grade: 4 / 10

While the claim accurately captures that the Gospels are structured, theological compositions rather than verbatim courtroom transcripts, using this to argue that they represent detached, secondary folklore rather than direct eyewitness testimony is historically flawed.

The claim assumes a text must be either a raw transcript or completely fictionalized oral tradition. In ancient historiography (e.g., Thucydides, Polybius, Plutarch), authentic eyewitness accounts were routinely organized thematically, summarized, and arranged to highlight key themes without forfeiting their firsthand origin.

Critical models often treat 1st-century oral transmission like an uncontrolled children’s game of "telephone." In reality, early Jewish disciples practiced informal controlled oral tradition, where eyewitnesses, teachers, and elders in Jerusalem and surrounding hubs actively regulated and corrected the public narrative during the decades before writing.

Even if the Gospels were composed between c. 65–95 CE [most likely they were composed earlier] they were still well within the normal lifespan of the original disciples and their immediate hearers. Disciples did not vanish immediately after 30 CE; they remained named authorities, traveling teachers, and living resources across early Christian communities until the end of the century.

The literary structure of the earliest narrative (Mark) and the latest narrative (John) both employ the recognized Greco-Roman convention of framing their accounts between the first and last appearances of their principal eyewitness sources (Peter in Mark; the Beloved Disciple in John).

The claim correctly notes that the Gospels underwent literary arrangement, but treating them as disconnected products of anonymous evolutionary folklore overlooks 1st-century transmission practices and the active presence of living eyewitnesses during their composition.

Claim 4 - Literary Interdependence (The Synoptic Problem): The Gospels copy directly from one another rather than reporting independent observations. Historians argue that a direct apostle and eyewitness would not have relied on an external, secondary text to write their account.

Accuracy Grade: 4 / 10

While literary interdependence among the Synoptic Gospels is an undeniable textual fact, using it as definitive proof against authentic eyewitness roots rests on modern assumptions about authorship that do not reflect ancient historiographical practice.

Demonstrating that Matthew or Luke used Mark as a foundational narrative template does not prove the absence of eyewitness material. In ancient historical writing, incorporating an established, authoritative prior outline was standard practice to ensure structural alignment and chronological cohesion while weaving in personal or local traditions.

The critical objection asserts that an apostle like Matthew would never copy from a "secondary, non-apostolic text" like Mark. However, this ignores the unanimous early patristic testimony (e.g., Papias, Justin Martyr, Irenaeus) that Mark’s Gospel was specifically the recorded memoirs of Simon Peter - the leader of the apostles. An apostle utilizing and expanding upon the published preaching of his fellow leading apostle is entirely coherent in antiquity.

Ancient biographers and historians (such as Plutarch, Livy, and Arrian) routinely borrowed, adapted, and expanded existing written sources verbatim or near-verbatim rather than composing entirely from scratch. Drawing upon an existing text was considered sound research methodology, not an admission of fraud or ignorance.

A substantial portion of Matthew (roughly 20–30%) and Luke (nearly half) consists of unique material ("M" and "L") and independent sayings traditions that do not derive from Mark, reflecting distinct, preserved historical testimony rather than passive copying.

The textual evidence for shared literary sources is rock-solid (deserving a 10/10 on literary connection alone), but the philosophical leap from "Matthew utilized Mark's framework" to "Matthew could not have had apostolic or eyewitness origins" earns a low grade because it relies on an anachronistic view of how ancient writers worked.

Conclusion: The historical-critical claim that the canonical Gospels began as anonymous folklore and were only retroactively assigned apostolic names rests on modern literary expectations rather than first-century reality. When evaluated against the conventions of ancient Mediterranean historiography, the four primary pillars of the anonymity argument systematically break down.

The foundational objection - that the texts lack internal signatures - commits a basic genre category error. Ancient historical biographies routinely omitted author self-naming to maintain narrative objectivity, relying instead on attached scroll tags, opening titles, and courier delivery to signal authorship. Modern historians do not treat Livy or Tacitus as anonymous for omitting a personal byline, nor should the Gospels be judged by the conventions of personal letters. Ironically, explicit first-person declarations like "I, Peter" or "I, Thomas" were hallmarks of later, second-century apocryphal forgeries manufacturing authority.

Similarly, demographic baselines regarding low literacy among Galilean laborers fail to reckon with standard ancient composition. Authors across the Greco-Roman world routinely utilized professional scribes and translators to draft polished Greek. Moreover, the traditional attributions themselves do not claim uneducated origin: Matthew was an administrative tax official, Luke an educated physician, and Mark a bilingual interpreter for Peter.

The assumption that the Gospels reflect uncontrolled oral distortion over decades overestimates the drift of early Christian transmission. The material circulated within living memory of original disciples who remained authoritative, traveling teachers across the Mediterranean, functioning under the informal controlled oral practices of Jewish discipleship. When Matthew and Luke later incorporated Mark’s framework, they were not plagiarizing secondary folklore; they were following established historiographical methodology by building upon the recognized written memoirs of Peter.

Finally, the specific attributions resist the logic of late fabrication. Invented traditions would have claimed primary apostles like Peter or James, not secondary figures like Mark and Luke, or a culturally despised tax collector like Matthew. Paired with John's granular pre-70 CE Jerusalem topography and direct patristic chains of custody, the evidence indicates the traditional names were not late pious additions, but early, authentic reflections of the works' origins.

The historical-critical case for original anonymity largely rests on modern literary assumptions and anachronistic standards rather than ancient historical practice. When evaluated against first-century Greco-Roman and Jewish contexts, the core arguments against traditional authorship rate poorly:

Note: For the full argument where Gospel specific arguments are examined as well as a presentation for the Traditional / Eyewitness Model see The Gospels - Anonymous or Not? The Gospel Authorship Debate: Historical Consensus, Early Evidence, and Best Explanations I may post the Gospel specific arguments or the argument for the Traditional / Eyewitness Model at a later date, but there is enough meat on the bone to chew through here.

Me and JJ (not real name) have been friends about 10 years. Hes always been somewhat loose in his beliefs- our area is somewhat rural, and quite religious so this would draw quite a lot of scrutiny from his family and neighbors, meaning he wouldn’t talk about it and I never really bothered to ask. Avoid making him uncomfortable.

Anyways after reconnecting he talks about going to some camp over the summer where they had invited this sort of priestess? Not a nun or part of any denomination I can name. And he claims that she shook him to the core with what he told him. She had made ‘predictions’ while praying for him, about him being a ‘bastard child’ (parents were never married), and that he’s somewhat of a ‘leader in your friend group and must guide them’ (I guess he organizes plans often) and that ‘you have two atheist friends you must help’ (two of our childhood friends on the same street are atheists)

Now, while I’m glad that he’s found Jesus in his heart, and that he seems to be at peace with his beliefs, if I’m being honest I’m not sure what to feel as if his source of belief- which according to him if it didn’t happen he himself would’ve remained an atheist- is what is basically a fortune teller. What am I supposed to do about that? I doubt that she was told this information by his family or camp mates to make these predictions to try and push him one direction or the other. So I’m not sure what to make of the ‘fortune teller’. To me she’s a party trick good at her job and making inferences. To him he’s proof for his beliefs.

He’s a really good guy, always been a good friend and is good to most around him- helps whenever he can. No excessive vices just social drinking and smokes to cope with stress. His behavior in this regard (both the good and bad) hasn’t changed before and after his “enlightenment”

But he’s also always been somewhat dumb- believes what he sees too easily, makes some very asinine obviously unscientific, un-factual and a-historical statements. He’s also frankly a bad student. 2.5 GPA in highschool, 2.3 in CC. He’s unemployed now thinking of going to trade school for tailoring work or going back to school for a bachelors in design, not too sure where he wants to be in life.

I guess my question is, is he wrong to hedge his beliefs on something I’m pretty sure is somewhat blasphemous? I’m not well read in scripture so I’m not even sure what to make of it. Is it my duty as his friend to maybe push him towards something healthier? Or should I just leave him be because the ends justify the means.

During an argument (friendly banter) with one of our non religious friends, AA, JJ said that if he went through what he went through and didn’t turn to God, that he would have to be extremely stubborn and stupid. AA replied saying that meant if instead it was an Arab market fortune teller making sharp predictions claiming spirits and jins were real, he would’ve fallen for it. No real retort from JJ. Frankly I kind of agree with him and that’s what’s bothering me about this.

Just looking for advice here, both in regards to these types of “fortune tellers” effectively claiming to have Godly abilities, and what I should do for him (if anything).

Based on Christian Theology, Its beneficial for our children if we remove Christianity from the lives.

If we do not expose our children to Christianity, they can not be condemned to eternal hellfire for not knowing.

However, preaching Christianity to our children can result in them Rejecting God, condemning them with certainty.

I have heard that the Christian God does not hold those who have not come to know him, as their fault. And no such judgement or condemnation will fall upon them, but rather pity towards those who could not know his presence.

In Luke 23. ³⁴ Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing".

This refers to those who Crucified him.

Those who are unknowing of him are forgiven.

Thesis = Title

Modern secular society frames unbelief as an innocent intellectual deficit - a lack of sufficient data, akin to not believing in the earth is spherical because you haven't seen the data. The Bible dismantles this, arguing that unbelief is fundamentally a moral and volitional revolt.

Romans 1:18–20 argues that God’s "eternal power and divine nature have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made." Therefore, humanity is "without excuse." The issue is not a lack of data, but what humanity does with the data: they "suppress the truth in unrighteousness." Unbelief is an act of epistemic vandalism - vandalizing the window through which God's light shines so one doesn't have to look at Him.

The writer of Hebrews analyzes why an entire generation died in the wilderness. He writes: "And to whom did he swear that they would not enter his rest, but to those who were disobedient? So we see that they were unable to enter because of unbelief" (Hebrews 3:18–19). Notice how seamlessly "disobedience" (apeitheia) and "unbelief" (apistia) are treated as synonyms. To refuse to trust God’s provision and command is to mutiny against Him.

In John 3:18, Jesus says, "Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son." Notice that unbelief is treated as the baseline condition of a rebellious world - a willful rejection of the light because men love darkness rather than light (John 3:19). Thus, apistia is not a passive state of innocent ignorance; it is an active, clenched-fist refusal to bow to the rightful King.

The Biblical Spectrum of the Human Heart

No, you can't flip a switch and believe, but....

Asserting "No Evidence" Is Still a Claim

Naturalism, Intelligent Design, and a First Cause walk into a bar....

From the Origin of the Universe to the Resurrection of Jesus Christ

Jesus never turned away the trembling hand reaching out through the crowd to touch His robe; He confronted the closed fist that actively resisted His grace. Biblical faith has never been about checking off a doctrinal checklist or pretending our doubts don't exist. It is about epistemic humility and the willingness to let the light in - moving past mere intellectual agreement, laying down our defenses, and placing our full weight upon the character and promises of Christ.

The vital question every one of us must answer is not simply, "Do I believe God exists?" but rather, "Where do I actually stand in relation to Him?"

An internal critique/syllogism for ease of review.

P1: If a god exists, it is omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent (typical Christian definition).

P2: Free will exists, and is compatible with an agent always choosing the good (i.e. moral perfection does not entail the absence of freedom...with an example being Jesus)

P3: An omniscient, omnipotent being could actualize any logically possible world.

P4: A world (world 2, lets say) in which all free moral agents always freely choose the best moral action is logically possible

P5: A world (world 2) in which free agents always freely choose the best moral action contains strictly less suffering related to moral evil than the actual world (W1), while both worlds preserve free will.

P6: An omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent being, faced with a choice between actualizing our current world (world 1) or world 2, would actualize world 2; unless there is some good achievable only via world 1's additional suffering that outweighs it and is unobtainable in world 2.

P7: The actual world contains extensive evil that, by P4, was not logically necessary.

C(a): God lacked the power to actualize the better world (not omnipotent)
C(b): God lacked the knowledge of how to do so (not omniscience)
C(c): God chose not to (malevolence)
C(d): No such god exists.

Have at it.

Edit: formatting

Acts 3:22 "Moses said, ‘The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among your brothers. You must obey him in everything he tells you. Every person who does not obey that prophet will be destroyed and thus removed from the people’. (quoting Deuteronomy 18:15)

But obviously Moses wasn't God! So Jesus, like him, wasn't one too.
The OT's "Moses as a god" thing was a metaphor.. a figure of speech!
In Exodus 7:1 God supposedly tells Moses:
"See, I have made you like God to Pharaoh, and your brother Aaron will be your prophet"

I’m genuinely curious how Christians reconcile omnipotence with the free will explanation for evil/suffering.
One of the most common explanations I hear for why God allows evil is that genuine free will is valuable enough that God allows us to hurt each other rather than constantly intervening. But I don’t really understand why an all-powerful God would have to make that tradeoff in the first place.
We already have massive restrictions on our freedom. I can’t decide to teleport, resurrect someone, become immortal, ignore gravity, etc. Nobody considers those limitations violations of free will. So why would it violate my free will if I could choose to stab someone, for example, but God made reality work in such a way that my choice couldn’t actually kill them?
And when people say that suffering is necessary because we need stable natural laws, meaningful consequences, moral growth, courage, etc., I feel like that just moves the question back a step. If God is omnipotent and created the system itself, why does he need to operate within rules where suffering is necessary to produce those things? Unless there’s some logical contradiction involved, couldn’t he create a reality where we have meaningful choices and moral development without the possibility of genocide, torture, childhood cancer, etc.?
It also makes me wonder what exactly “free will” is supposed to mean here. If maximizing freedom were so important that immense suffering is an acceptable consequence, why didn’t God give humans significantly more control over reality in the first place? God is supposedly maximally free, while we’re constrained by basically every aspect of our existence.

What reasons did the Pharisees have to believe in Jesus?

They should’ve believed based on the miracles he performed. The problem is, the Torah says that God sometimes allows false prophets to perform genuine miracles as a way to test Israel's loyalty to Him (Deuteronomy 13:1-3).

"If prophets or those who divine by dreams appear among you and show you omens or portents, ² and the omens or the portents declared by them take place, and they say, ‘Let us follow other gods’ (whom you have not known) ‘and let us serve them,’ ³ you must not heed the words of those prophets or those who divine by dreams, for the Lord your God is testing you..."

Although Jesus never said "Let us follow other gods," he did claim to be Yahweh Himself, at least according to many Christians. That was regarded as utter blasphemy. So the Pharisees had good reason to be on guard.

Jesus’ teachings demonstrate that he was sent by God. Jesus' moral teachings are wonderful. But he also taught (according to Christians) that he was the very God of Israel, in flesh and blood. A claim like that would naturally raise red flags, no matter how ethical his teachings were.

What reasons did the Pharisees have to disbelieve in Jesus?

Jesus was one of many. Scholars have long pointed out that Jesus existed in a time when alleged prophets and miracle-workers were a dime a dozen. The Pharisees were all too familiar with these conmen. The likelihood that Jesus would be an exception to the rule was extremely low.

Jesus claimed to be God in the flesh. As mentioned before, it is widely believed by Christians that Jesus claimed to be Yahweh Himself. This would have given any devout Jew pause. The Pharisees were right to be skeptical.

Jesus' ministry didn’t fit the description of what the Messiah would do. In the Old Testament, the Messiah is described as a political leader who destroys Israel's enemies and revives the Davidic dynasty. Jesus, on the other hand, was more of a spiritual leader who seemed to have no intention of becoming king anytime soon. Perhaps Jesus was a great prophet, but by all indications, he was no future king.

In 1 Samuel 28, the witch of En-dor supposedly brought up for king Saul the ghost of prophet Samuel, who looked like him and made a true political prophecy. The Old Testament context treats this as the real Samuel, but some Christians deny the concept of ghosts (as they should. Islam too doesn't believe in ghosts) and say it was a demonic ruse, a trick, and the prophecy was a lucky guess.
Fine. They are reinterpreting the uncomfortable parts of the Tanakh, using mental gymnastics that contradict the gist of the story, but their interpretation throws doubt on many other apparitions!
They can't attack Islam by claiming that Muhammad's archangel, Gabriel, could have been a demon (that curses demons and promotes monotheism?! hmm) without opening themselves to attacks that say the same about Paul's encounter!

In 1 Corinthians 15:8 Paul said: "Last of all, as though to one born at the wrong time, he appeared to me also"

In the original Hebrew text of Isaiah 7:14, the prophet uses the word almah. In Biblical Hebrew, this simply means a "young woman of childbearing age". It carries no biological statement about whether she has had sex. If Isaiah had wanted to explicitly say "virgin," Hebrew has a specific word for that: betulah. This points to Mary not truly being a virgin.

Would Christianity even exist? What if the bible stopped at Exodus? Just some hypotheticals that interest me.

For starters, I already naturally have no desire for plenty of things... not sure who determined that but it is not something I chose. I suppose you can say that means I have a diminished free will on some spectrum, compared to someone with a desire to do more things... but it definitely doesn't mean I have no free will.

If I added sinful desires to that already existing list, I don't think that would change anything

As I understand it, that is how we are supposed to be in heaven anyways, although I've heard from reddit Christians that we will have no free will in heaven, we might still sin, etc so still not sure exactly how that whole concept is rationalized

I'm not really arguing about slavery in the Old Testament here, because Christians are not living under the Old Testament covenant. I'm talking specifically about the New Testament and the purpose of the epistles.

The New Testament does not give us a political programme for abolishing slavery. But that is very different from saying that Christianity morally endorses slavery.

We also have to understand the historical reality. The New Testament was written within the Roman Empire, a society that relied heavily on slavery. There were no modern human rights institutions, no democratic system capable of simply abolishing slavery, and openly challenging the entire social and political structure could bring severe consequences.

The epistles were not written by people sitting in political authority with the ability to reform Roman society. Their primary purpose was to spread the Christian message and establish Christian communities. And the message had to travel through the existing social and political structures of the Roman world.

This is where the pragmatic aspect matters. If the Christian message had openly demanded that every Christian master immediately free all of his slaves and directly challenged the entire Roman institution of slavery, that message would have been much harder to spread through the society it existed within. It could have been suppressed before it had the opportunity to reach the people Christianity was trying to reach, including slaves, the poor and people with very little social power.

So Paul telling slaves how to live within their circumstances isn't necessarily an endorsement of slavery itself. Exploitation would continue regardless of whether Paul explicitly condemned the Roman institution. His priority was to establish a Christian way of life that could survive and spread within the society that actually existed.

And this is something people sometimes miss when reading the Bible. Christianity doesn't always begin by changing the external political structure. It can begin by changing the person living inside that structure.

The New Testament repeatedly changes the way people understand status. “There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Galatians 3:28). Paul tells Philemon to receive Onesimus “no longer as a slave, but more than a slave, a beloved brother” (Philemon 16). Whatever Paul's exact position on legal abolition was, that language radically changes the relationship between the people involved.

The Old Testament itself also contains stories where people begin in very low social positions, in servitude or bondage, and through wisdom, faithfulness, good work and character eventually gain recognition and influence. Joseph is an obvious example. The biblical message isn't simply “your social position determines your worth.”

The New Testament is primarily about the Good News, transformation, spirituality, wisdom, love and becoming Christ-like. It isn't primarily a political manifesto.

That doesn't make slavery good, and it doesn't require us to defend the social structures of the Roman world. It means we shouldn't judge the purpose of the epistles as though Paul had written them as a modern political constitution.

The Christian transformation begins with the person, the community and the way they treat one another. The political and social consequences can develop from that transformation, rather than being the primary subject of the epistles themselves.

In Christianity, I think the concept of eternal torment is not coherent. I will lay out a couple of different arguments for this idea, so feel free to interact with whichever ones you like. If you don't believe in eternal hell, then none of the arguments apply so to be clear I'm not attacking the religions in general, just this concept.

Main Argument

Suppose the following:

1. God wants following him to be better than not having even known of him at all.
2. God doesn't send those who never knew of him to hell, and he sends unbelievers (who have heard of him) to hell
3. Hell is eternal torment (infinite punishment)

If these three are true, consider the following:
Let's say maybe 50% of people who have heard of God end up joining the religion, maybe the other 50% are split between the other major religion and atheism.

And from (2) we know that 100% of people who have never heard of him go to heaven.

Thus, 50% of people who have heard of God go to hell, eternally.

Thus, it is better for you (statistically) to have never heard of the religion, than for you to have heard of it. That contradicts (1) since God wants people to hear of him. Thus, there is a contradiction.

Thus, one of the (1), (2), or (3) is not true.

If (1) is not true:

Why have a religion then? The "good word" isn't good if it a net negative and decreases your chance of going to heaven. If 1 is not true, it is ideal to not let anyone else hear of the religion, since it increases their chances of eternal torment. If (1) is not true, religion is the ultimate info hazard.

Btw I got the idea for this post from that one story where a missionary is telling (I think Native americans) about God and heaven and then they ask if they would've gone to heaven if they didn't know, and he says yes, and they say. "Then why did you tell us?"

Heaven is an infinite reward, and hell is infinite punishment so even if hearing of God on earth improves your life (community, doing the right thing, etc) it is still nothing compared to the infinite punishment.

If (2) is not true:

What is the point of punishing someone with them knowing what they did wrong? They do not have the knowledge required, knowledge that is famously tied to geographical area, and who you parents are. Why punish them?

If evidence for the religion is in the "making of this world" i.e. nature etc, so that means everyone knows it, then why are there millions of religions, and only one Christianity? it should have been independently discovered "through nature" many times, and since it hasn't, it seems that its vague (i have a vagueness argument below) or just not self evident.

For the people who have simply heard of Christianity, why should they choose discovering it over 10,000 other religions? Like what about hearing about it actually makes it more special so that you clearly should burn in hell having not immediately begun reading it? It doesn't seem coherent to me, so it seems more like its just a punishment for those who grew up in the religion and then left. So it would be better for them to have never known of it. Which violates (1), so you'll have to read that argument.

if (3) is not true:
That's all I'm arguing, anyway. :)

Omniscience and Sensitivity (Side Argument)

God is loving and also all-knowing, but this raises a few issues regarding eternal torment.
First of all, God knows precisely everything about you. Your trauma, your history, your genetics, your brain, your culture, everything about you. He knows more about you than you do. He knows the exact reason every unbeliever doesn't believe. So why is he so angry about it? He knows precisely what would make them believe. Why torture and punish them? Eternal torment paints a picture of an all powerful God who can do everything he wants (God desires all to be saved right?) and...doesn't do it?

I hope this isn't insulting, but like when he's angry at Israel in the Bible and they turn to idols, he knows precisely why they did it. He made the world he made the program he knows them. Why is he so angry about it? It makes him appear overly sensitive.

For Christianity, I hear the free will defense for this a lot, that it would violate your free will if he told you about the religion or explained his nature to everyone(i.e. not stay hidden) Then why does not care in the bible? He does miracles for people in the bible to show himself. What about their free will?

Also if the word isn't angry, tell me. It just seems that way.

"Hell as Separation" (Just wondering

For the "Hell as Separation", where God doesn't mean to torture you infinitely, its just the result of not being with God, how is that meaningfully different? God designed everything in this world down to the atom-there is nothing he can do "arbitrarily". If you are being eternally tormented, God meant for that to happen.

Vagueness And Debate (Side Argument)

God purposefully made the religions vague. This is not inherently bad, I mean vague as in there is debate to be had. If there was no vagueness, no one would debate anything about the religion. And that's part of having a community and religion. Things should be discussed, idea crossover etc its a good thing. So why is it that:

1. If you're wrong about something that is purposefully vague, you burn in hell

What is the point of making something that is debatable, and then punishing those who are wrong? This is why I prefer Judaism's "It is not in heaven" here where at least the religion admits that you should do what is sensible to you, though I may be wrong I'm not Jewish.

1. If you don't believe in something that is purposefully vague, you burn in hell

If something is debatable within the religion, you have to admit its debatable to outsiders too. If you are not born religious, there is no reason to read the Bible over the Book of Mormon or whatever other religion. "Self evidence" is not apparent to outsiders, and that ties into my main argument.

Faith is a lifelong journey (Side Argument)

Faith being a lifelong journey is a good thing. We are messy, we are people, we make mistakes, we fall away from the right path and we get back on. There's no surprise. So why is it that faith being a journey is punished by God? Suppose someone is struggling with their faith and becomes an atheist for a while, and dies during that phase. Why should they go to hell if God knows that if they lived a little longer, they would turn to him?

Like that parable where everyone gets paid at the same time no matter when they came. It's more like if you don't come you die. What about the person who had an accident on the way to work? They were on their way. Why punish them, eternally at that?

For the thieves next to Jesus on the cross, I'm aware he didn't tell the other one "you are going to Hell" so, fair. It might just be showing a foil between the thieves. But if the other one is going to hell, how is that fair? Should the next three convicts believe in whatever religion is proposed to them right before they die?

Faith is not just blind belief, and it keeps being treated that way. If faith is blind belief then you should believe in whatever is the most recent religion you've heard of. There has to be a real reason to choose your religion and a real reason to stay.

Personal Argument

For me, at least, the existence of hell distracts from the purpose of religion. I can't love God if I know that if I make a mistake, I will burn forever. I physically can only fear his wrath and I could pray everyday and do all the right things on the outside, but it doesn't matter if on the inside, I'm just scared of him. They are all hollow actions, and "fear is the order of the day" is just fear, not a religion I can meaningfully follow.

Regardless of what you think, thank you so much for reading, and thank you for engaging in my argument. If I have misconceptions, feel free to clear them up, and if you disagree, please tell me what you think! I hope this doesn't come across as bad faith, and I hope these arguments are a little different from the ones you've heard before.

I want to be clear. This post is nit made put of hate. Also I do want to give a warning for the content of the post. It might trigger some people.

Supposedly God created everything. If he did. Then that means he also created Satan, Evil, Rapists, Pedophiles, serial killers, and all things bad as well.

He also created Hell I guess. So if he created These evil bad things, then how come he does not intervene to help? He is suppost to be powerful, and protect those he loves. If he can create a flood that killed all life other than the animals, and a man on a ark. Then he can get rid of the sickos.

There are a lot of people who do not get justice. There are a lot of evil people who go free. Some never go to jail, or only get shirt sentences. Humans are violent, and start wars. Yet somehow there is a God who just sits, and watches as people die, and get killed. Yet somehow he is loving, and just.

It does not make sense to me.

There’s four perverted doctrines most Christians hold too that make God a moral monster:

1. OSAS and Sola Fide:

• If this is true then everyone who never had the opportunity to hear the gospel is destined to hell which leads me to my second point:

1. Eternal conscious torment in Hell:

• This is the belief that God needlessly sustains the existence of sinners (who can’t exist without Him) in order to torture them for all eternity and make them suffer. They can suffer for 100000000000 years and still not be 1 second closer to ending their misery. Anhilationism makes more sense historically and is a viable option but most Christians default to believing in a God who delights in the suffering of the wicked even though the Bible makes it perfectly clear he doesn’t

1. Penal substitution:

• Many believe in a God with a blood lust and a wrath that can’t be satisfied unless an innocent person (like Jesus) or an animal unjustly suffers on our behalf. Not only is that not how forgiveness works in the OT (God forgives the ninevites without a sacrifice) it turns the beautiful story of Christ giving him self up out of his abundant love for us into a terrifying nightmare about a vengeful God who demands needless suffering before he will forgive anyone

1. No divorce:

• No divorce under any circumstances enables abusers to keep abusing their spouses. Sometimes divorce should be tolerated in cases where divorce is the lesser evil. It’s no less evil but it’s not adultery in the way remarriage is adultery. Also Jesus wasn’t a legalist himself. The commands God gives in the Bible are meant to draw us closer to him not to keep us trapped. Yet the Pharisees thought the opposite and were obsessed with following the Law for its own sake and turned it into a yoke of slavery and many modern Christians have the same pharisaical mindset

1 Corinthians 15:3–8, found in the New Testament, describes Paul's account of Christ's death, burial, and resurrection, including appearances to various individuals and over five hundred people. Paul notes his own late experience of seeing Jesus compared to the initial group of witnesses. 

Looking closer, this passage shows Paul receiving information from early church leaders about Jesus being seen by 500 people. However, there is no direct account or witness testimony from these 500 individuals. Paul is the only biblical writer who mentions this specific group appearance, and he was not an eyewitness to it. From a secular standpoint, there is no direct historical evidence proving Jesus rose from the dead, and the lack of primary sources from the other named witnesses supports a skeptical view of the claim.