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Not sure how I missed this post!! Please, people of all faiths, including nonbelief, are emphatically welcome to discuss these isolated sayings. I've deliberately isolated them for discussion by one, by all. I would welcome readers who would be ready as a thought experiment to scrutinize...

My own take is that there is some degree of evidence for any number of things that may be unlikely. But the question in each case is, Is it strong evidence or poor evidence? Not all evidence is automatically strong. At the same time, even if evidence is poor, it can still be counted as...

There may be one external indication of such a document, though. Papias wrote of an early Matthew that consisted of "logia" only. As a result, scholars have debated the possible meaning of "logia" in such a context. A recent statistical analysis from Dave Gentile of the original Greek for the...

Time to make some changes here ==========> These are two different bundles of quotes relating to two possibly divergent conceptions of who/what Jesus is. The first one is the earliest bundle of quotes from the earliest textual strata purporting to give direct quotes of Jesus addressing just...

Is that from the Gospel of Thomas? Cheers, Operacast

Hey, let's try it! These are two different bundles of quotes relating to two possibly divergent conceptions of who/what Jesus is. The first one is the earliest bundle of quotes from the earliest textual strata purporting to give direct quotes of Jesus addressing just who he himself thinks he...

LOL!! Not quite. Rather, do readers here see either a disconnect or a similarity between the Pauline "bundle" given at the end of the OP versus the earliest Jesus self-descriptions "bundle" provided further up in the OP? Thanks. Cheers, Operacast

Part II In the parallel sayings in Matt./Luke sometimes termed Q, Luke: 10:21-22 reads -- In that same hour he rejoiced in the Holy Spirit and said, "I thank thee, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that thou hast hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to babes...

Part I I used to be guilty of charging whatever research I could attempt with considerably hefty sleights of convenience. What do I mean by that? Well, I used to be guilty of making rash assumptions based on content alone (whether it was looking at variant editions of Shak[e]speare or variant...

Candidly, it's pretty much because I posed precisely that question to myself nearly fifteen years ago and could find no logical reason to answer "No" that I stopped being an atheist. You're the first person I've encountered who sees the question as clearly. I think once we get the answer to...

And that is precisely the question I've been banging my head against ever since I stopped being an atheist in my late 30s -- THANK YOU!! Best, Operacast

Well, this discussion appears to have really gone mainstream! http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/15/weekinreview/12wade.html?_r=1&ref=weekinreview Cheers, Operacast

Which leaves us with two overriding questions (in my view): How come it is the single attribute/mandate most uniformly ascribed to God and mandated of humanity and yet the most frequently dropped like a hot potato in "second"/"third-generation" texts for creed after creed? And how come such a...

Repeatedly, though, it becomes something more than that in formulation after formulation: Invariably, hand in hand with this "imaging" of God goes the inevitable mandate that others should indeed "provide for the overall welfare of the citizenry". Benign neglect is not what is advocated in...

The oldest text that is venerated by more than one faith would be the Torah or Pentateuch (comprising Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy), which is venerated by Jews, Christians and Moslems alike. So one might, for the sake of argument, subject it to the most modern scholarly...

I was quite startled to find a point/counterpoint argument online on why religion has evolved the way it has, in which the chief points to and fro took up many of the questions that I've mulled over here concerning religion and its development's possible relationship to the intricacies of...

The tragically short-sighted Nobel committee has screwed our whole country, possibly the whole world, by presenting this award -- IMO. And for those who may not recall (I've not posted here for a while), I happen to write this as one who voted for Obama and would do so again. Unfortunately, not...

I also used to assume that anything metaphysical was strictly imaginary, having grown up an atheist in a family who were also nonbelievers. It wasn't until further reading up on history and on evolution (which still strikes me as entirely plausible and in fact now more or less proved by modern...

Well, it's hardly my term only. "Mythicist" is shorthand for "Jesus mythicist": This is a term denoting someone who doesn't merely maintain that Jesus of Nazareth was never partly supernatural at all and never "the Christ" (a fairly common contention for those who are not orthodox Christians)...

And BTW, the reason why the resident Jesus mythicists here refuse to address this aspect is because they have no practical knowledge of the study of history as refined in the 21st century, and they're only interested in winning arguments -- which they know they wouldn't do on this ground --...