For those that don't believe the bible is the word of God...

[Butterbean]

I'm discussing the Muslim view of the Koran. That the words in the Koran are the words of God. I do not believe this to be so, but I think it is important to understand how different religions works.

And the Muslim perspective on the Koran is a fundamental part of that religion IMO.

The Christian perspective of the Bible is (usually) not that the words in the Bible are the words of God. You are, as I stated before, the first person I've come across, with that perspective.

I'm not sure we are on the same page here.  I believe the bible is the word of God, meaning God wrote it through human writers by inspiring them as to what to write.  I think you may be inferring that I believe each word was dictated by God?  That's not what I meant.  Sorry for the confusion.

[Deicide]

What prophecies in the OT are you referring to?



I'm discussing the Muslim view of the Koran. That the words in the Koran are the words of God. I do not believe this to be so, but I think it is important to understand how different religions works.

And the Muslim perspective on the Koran is a fundamental part of that religion IMO.

The Christian perspective of the Bible is (usually) not that the words in the Bible are the words of God. You are, as I stated before, the first person I've come across, with that perspective.

He's talking about the alleged 'prophecies' in the OT that predict the alleged coming of the alleged 'Jesus of Nazareth'.

[loco]

He's talking about the alleged 'prophecies' in the OT that predict the alleged coming of the alleged 'Jesus of Nazareth'.

I'm pretty sure STella is a she, not a he.

[Deicide]

I'm pretty sure STella is a she, not a he.

She then...

[Hedgehog]

I'm not sure we are on the same page here.  I believe the bible is the word of God, meaning God wrote it through human writers by inspiring them as to what to write.  I think you may be inferring that I believe each word was dictated by God?  That's not what I meant.  Sorry for the confusion.

If God inspired, not directed, human writers - then God did not write the Bible.

And if God did not write the Bible, then the Bible is not the word of God.

Nice to see we can agree on that.


I assume we can agree on that the Ten Commandments are the word of God though?

[Butterbean]

If God inspired, not directed, human writers - then God did not write the Bible.

And if God did not write the Bible, then the Bible is not the word of God.

Nice to see we can agree on that.


I assume we can agree on that the Ten Commandments are the word of God though?

I still think the bible is the word of God 

And yes, that includes the 10 Commandments


Zack I think you've said that you accept that the 10 Commandments are the only part of the bible that actually is presented in the bible as coming directly from God? 

Are you aware that numerous passages in the bible quote God directly concerning other things?

[Butterbean]

What prophecies in the OT are you referring to?

Prophecies Concerning His Lineage 
Prophecy                     Topic                        Fulfillment 
Genesis 3:15  Born of the seed of woman        Galatians 4:4 
Genesis 21:12  Descendant of Isaac               Matthew 1:1,2 
Genesis 22:18, Genesis 12:2,3  Seed of Abraham  Matthew 1:1 
Genesis 49:10  Of the tribe of Judah              Matthew 1:1,2 
Numbers 24:17  Descendant of Jacob             Matthew 1:1,2 
Isaiah 11:1, 10  Descendant of Jesse             Matthew 1:1,6 
Jeremiah 23:5, Psalm 132:11  Descendant of David  Matthew 1:1,6, Revelation 22:16 
Psalm 2:7, Proverbs 30:4  Son of God  Matthew 17:5, Luke 3:38, Luke 22:70 

Prophecies Concerning His Birth  
Prophecy              Topic                             Fulfillment 
Psalm 72:10  Kings will present gifts               Matthew 2:1-11 
Isaiah 7:14  Born of a virgin                          Matthew 1:23-25, Luke 2:7 
Isaiah 7:14  Will be called Immanuel                Matthew 1:23 
Jeremiah 31:15  Children will be killed              Matthew 2:16-18 
Micah 5:2  Will be born in Bethlehem               Luke 2:4-7 


Prophecies Concerning His Ministry  
Prophecy                       Topic                    Fulfillment 
Deuteronomy 18:15-18  Will be a Prophet  Matthew 21:11, John 6:14, John 4:19 
Psalm 29:11  Will bless His people with peace  Acts 10:36, John 14:27 
Psalm 31:5  Will commit Himself to God           Luke 23:46 
Psalm 45:2  Will speak words of grace             Luke 4:22 
Psalm 68:18, Psalm 110:1  Will ascend to heaven--to the Father's right hand  Acts 1:9, Hebrews 1:3, Mark 16:19 
Psalm 69:9  Will have a zeal for God               John 2:15-17 
Psalm 78:2  Will teach parables                     Matthew 13:34,35 
Psalm 110:4  Will be a priest                        Hebrews 5:5,6, Hebrews 3:1 
Isaiah 2:4  He will judge & rebuke many           Matthew 11:20 
Isaiah 9:1  Will begin ministry in Galilee            Matthew 4:12-17 
Isaiah 9:6  He's eternal  John 8:58, John 1:1,    Romans 9:5 
Isaiah 11:2  Anointing of the Holy Spirit           Mark 1:10,11 
Isaiah 33:22  Will be Judge                   Acts 10:40-42, Matthew 25:31-34, II Timothy 4:1 
Isaiah 35:5,6  Will have a ministry of miracles  John 5:5-9, Luke 7:22, Matthew 11:4-6 
Isaiah 42:1, 49:1  He will minister to Gentiles    Luke 2:32 
Isaiah 53:12, Isaiah 59:16  Will make intercession  Luke 23:34, Romans 8:34 
Isaiah 60:3  Will be a Light to Gentiles             Acts 13:47,48 
Micah 5:2, Isaiah 9:6, Psalm 102:25-27, Isaiah 41:4  Jesus' pre-existence  Colossians 1:17, John 1:1 
Zechariah 9:9, Psalm 2:6  Will be King            John 18:33-38, Matthew 27:37 
Zechariah 9:9  Triumphal entry on a donkey     Luke 19:35-37 
Malachi 3:1, Isaiah 40:3  Will be preceded by messenger  John 1:23, Matthew 3:1-3 
Malachi 3:1  Will enter the temple                  Matthew 21:12 


Prophecies Concerning Others' Reactions to Him 
Prophecy                  Topic                          Fulfillment 
Psalm 69:4  Will be hated without cause         John 15:24,25 
Psalm 69:9  Will be reproached                      Romans 15:3 
Psalm 110:1, Jeremiah 23:6  Will be called LORD  John 20:28, Luke 2:11 
Isaiah 9:6  Will be called God                         John 20:28, Titus 2:13 
Isaiah 11:10  Gentiles will seek Him                  John 12:18-21 
Isaiah 28:16, Psalm 118:22  Jews will reject Him, but He will become the Chief Cornerstone  Acts 4:11,12, I Peter 2:7, Matthew 21:42,43 
Isaiah 53:3, Psalm 31:11, Psalm 69:8  Will be ignored by His own people  John 1:11 


Prophecies Concerning His Death  
Prophecy                Topic                                      Fulfillment 
Psalm 16:10, Hosea 6:2  Will rise from the dead          Acts 2:31 
Psalm 22:1  Forsaken by His Father                           Mark 15:33, Matthew 27:46 
Psalm 22:7,8  Will be ridiculed                                  Matthew 27:39-44 
Psalm 22:14  Heart will be broken                              John 19:34 
Psalm 22:16, Zechariah 12:10, Isaiah 53:5  Hands & feet will be pierced  Luke 23:33 
Psalm 22:17,18  Will be stripped and stared at            Luke 23:34,35 
Psalm 22:18  Soldiers will cast lots for His clothing        Luke 23:34, John 19:23,24 
Psalm 34:20  Bones will not be broken                        John 19:33 
Psalm 35:11  Will be accused by false witnesses          Matthew 26:59,60 
Psalm 38:11  Friends will stand at a distance               Luke 23:49, Mark 15:40 
Psalm 41:9  Will be betrayed by a friend                     Luke 22:47,48, John 18:1-6 
Psalm 69:21  Will be offered vinegar & gall                 John 19:28,29, Matthew 27:34 
Psalm 109:25, Psalm 22:7,8  People will wag their heads  Matthew 27:39, Mark 15:29,30 
Isaiah 50:6  People will spit in His face                        Matthew 26:67 
Isaiah 53:5  Will be whipped                                      Matthew 27:26 
Isaiah 53:7  Will be silent before accusers                    Matthew 27:12 
Isaiah 53:9  Buried in rich man's grave                         Matthew 27:57-60 
Isaiah 53:12  Numbered with transgressors - crucified with thieves  Mark 15:27,28 
Amos 8:9  Darkness will cover the land                        Matthew 27:45 
Zechariah 11:12  Betrayed for thirty pieces of silver        Matthew 26:14,15 
Zechariah 11:13  Money thrown in the house of the Lord  Matthew 27:5 
Zechariah 11:13  Price for potter's field                          Matthew 27:6,7 
Zechariah 12:10  Look on whom pierced                         John 19:34-37 
Zechariah 12:10  Side will be pierced                              John 19:34 

(from the website truthsaves.org)

[ToxicAvenger]

Does it make you angry that some people do believe it's the word of God?  If so, why?

its a free world..as long as it dosen't effect me you can worship a weedwacker for all i care..

[Decker]

Does it make you angry that some people do believe it's the word of God?  If so, why?

It doesn't anger me but it does frustrate me.  Here's why:

You say the Bible is the inerrant word of God.  How do you know that?

The only honest answer is you do not know that.

Why?  B/c it is a matter of hope that the good book is God's word.

I also dislike the air of arrogance that your statement of divine knowledge exudes.  I mean for the love of the lord, WHAT PERSON CAN ARGUE WITH GOD'S WORD!

Other than that, I live in a free country and everyone is free to believe whatever idea gets them through the night.

[Butterbean]

I also dislike the air of arrogance that your statement of divine knowledge exudes.  I mean for the love of the lord, WHAT PERSON CAN ARGUE WITH GOD'S WORD!

Hi Decker!

Would you say you feel equally frustrated with a Muslim who claims "there is no other god but allah" and that the Koran is the word of god or feel there is arrogance in his/her statements?

Or would you be equally frustrated at a Branch-Davidian that claimed to you that "David Koresh is the messiah" and all that he spoke was true?

If not, why not?

[Deicide]

Hi Decker!

Would you say you feel equally frustrated with a Muslim who claims "there is no other god but allah" and that the Koran is the word of god or feel there is arrogance in his/her statements?

Or would you be equally frustrated at a Branch-Davidian that claimed to you that "David Koresh is the messiah" and all that he spoke was true?

If not, why not?

That's exactly the point. Thousands of religions all claiming the the absolute truth, what are the chances that your particular one is correct. You were raised in the culture and if you had been born in Meso-America a thousands years ago you would be dancing to a different tune.

As for your socalled prophecies, NT writers wrote the Gospels to conform to the OT and I can cite many 'prophecies' that were not fulfilled and you just would ignore them.

What you have is faith, not knowledge. There's a big difference.

[OzmO]

Why is it that conservative Christians avoid admitting their "Word of god" is solely based on belief?

[Necrosis]

That's exactly the point. Thousands of religions all claiming the the absolute truth, what are the chances that your particular one is correct. You were raised in the culture and if you had been born in Meso-America a thousands years ago you would be dancing to a different tune.

As for your socalled prophecies, NT writers wrote the Gospels to conform to the OT and I can cite many 'prophecies' that were not fulfilled and you just would ignore them.

What you have is faith, not knowledge. There's a big difference.

good post.

thousands of religions, the chances that YOUR god is real is extremely low. and they are immune to reason. they wont hear opposing sides, or admit some flaw. because they cant, if there is a contradiction, it cant be. why? its gods word, he doesnt contradict himself, we are wrong. all reason and logic goes out the window.

[The Freakshow]

That's exactly the point. Thousands of religions all claiming the the absolute truth, what are the chances that your particular one is correct. You were raised in the culture and if you had been born in Meso-America a thousands years ago you would be dancing to a different tune.

As for your socalled prophecies, NT writers wrote the Gospels to conform to the OT and I can cite many 'prophecies' that were not fulfilled and you just would ignore them.

What you have is faith, not knowledge. There's a big difference.

You're right when you say there are many religions that "claim" that there's is absolute truth. However, there is only one that has ever proven it! I know you don't believe, in spite of the evidence, that the Christian faith is the one absolute true faith.

However, do you believe that there is "one" absolute true faith?

You are also correct when you state that if we were raised in a different culture we would be dancing to a different tune. However, after being confronted with the facts of the Gospel, I would have to take a serious look at my beliefs. If I were raised a Jew for example or a Muslim, and I was challenged with the information I have today, I believe I would convert to Christianity.

As far as your statement that the New Testament writers wrote the Gospels to conform to the Old Testament prophecies, do you have any evidence that was in fact the case? Because to my knowledge there is no evidence to deny that those prophesies did in fact occur as stated in the New Testament.

I noticed in one of your previous posts that you referred to Jesus as the "ALLEGED" Jesus of Nazareth.

He's talking about the alleged 'prophecies' in the OT that predict the alleged coming of the alleged 'Jesus of Nazareth'.

Are you saying the Jesus did not exist? Because that is an accepted fact by even the most outspoken skeptics of the Bible.

If you are trying to use the prophecies of the Bible to discredit the Bible, you are headed down the wrong road. If that is your chosen method of debate, you will be a converted Christian soon  Come on over to the side of Truth my friend. we will welcome you with open arms

[gcb]

Does it make you angry that some people do believe it's the word of God?  If so, why?

Other people can believe what they like. What I don't like is when they try and impose their beliefs on everyone else - they're usually all the more brazen about it because "it is the word of God".

[Deicide]

You're right when you say there are many religions that "claim" that there's is absolute truth. However, there is only one that has ever proven it! I know you don't believe, in spite of the evidence, that the Christian faith is the one absolute true faith.

A ridiculous, blanket statement if ever there was one. Christianity has proven nothing and its continued existence is a consequence of a long traditon, authoritarianism, the weakness of human psychology in general, fear of death specifically and cultural memes.

However, do you believe that there is "one" absolute true faith?

No. I have no faith. I prefer knowledge. Faith is the blind leading the blind, the hope for that, which is not, the desire for magic and the denial of reality.

You are also correct when you state that if we were raised in a different culture we would be dancing to a different tune. However, after being confronted with the facts of the Gospel, I would have to take a serious look at my beliefs. If I were raised a Jew for example or a Muslim, and I was challenged with the information I have today, I believe I would convert to Christianity.

My specific example was that of being born and raised in Meso-America a thousand years ago. You would have never heard the name Christianity, Jesus, Moses or anything else related to your religion for that matter. Christians never have an adequate answer to this.

As far as your statement that the New Testament writers wrote the Gospels to conform to the Old Testament prophecies, do you have any evidence that was in fact the case? Because to my knowledge there is no evidence to deny that those prophesies did in fact occur as stated in the New Testament.

This is the approach most critical scholars take when examining the NT, rather than blindly assuming it to be a magic book, fulfilling magic prophecies of the cobbled together OT.
We have abundant evidence for this. In fact, a good deal of it is copied directly out of the OT. The slaughter of the innocents is taken right out of the Book of Exodus for example.

I noticed in one of your previous posts that you referred to Jesus as the "ALLEGED" Jesus of Nazareth.

Are you saying the Jesus did not exist? Because that is an accepted fact by even the most outspoken skeptics of the Bible.

It is not. I do not think there is enough historical evidence to support a real Jesus of Nazareth, never mind the fact that Nazareth didn't exist during the time of his alleged birth. But we have discussed this in other threads to considerable length. Below, a noted sceptic and biblical scholar:

First (and, I warn you, this one takes by far the most explaining): It is quite likely, though certainly by no means definitively provable, that the central figure of the gospels is not based on any historical individual. Put simply, not only is the theological "Christ of faith" a synthetic construct of theologians, a symbolic "Uncle Sam" figure. But if you could travel through time, like Superboy, and you went back to First-Century Nazareth, you would not find a Jesus living there. Why conclude this? There are three reasons, which I must oversimplify for time's sake.

1) In broad outline and in detail, the life of Jesus as portrayed in the gospels corresponds to the worldwide Mythic Hero Archetype in which a divine hero's birth is supernaturally predicted and conceived, the infant hero escapes attempts to kill him, demonstrates his precocious wisdom already as a child, receives a divine commission, defeats demons, wins acclaim, is hailed as king, then betrayed, losing popular favor, executed, often on a hilltop, and is vindicated and taken up to heaven.

These features are found world wide in heroic myths and epics. The more closely a supposed biography, say that of Hercules, Apollonius of Tyana, Padma Sambhava, of Gautama Buddha, corresponds to this plot formula, the more likely the historian is to conclude that a historical figure has been transfigured by myth.

And in the case of Jesus Christ, where virtually every detail of the story fits the mythic hero archetype, with nothing left over, no "secular," biographical data, so to speak, it becomes arbitrary to assert that there must have been a historical figure lying back of the myth. There may have been, but it can no longer be considered particularly probable, and that's all the historian can deal with: probabilities.

There may have been an original King Arthur, but there is no particular reason to think so. There may have been a historical Jesus of Nazareth, too, but, unlike most of my colleagues in the Jesus Seminar, I don't think we can simply assume there was.

2) Specifically, the passion stories of the gospels strike me as altogether too close to contemporary myths of dying and rising savior gods including Osiris, Tammuz, Baal, Attis, Adonis, Hercules, and Asclepius. Like Jesus, these figures were believed to have once lived a life upon the earth, been killed, and risen shortly thereafter. Their deaths and resurrections were in most cases ritually celebrated each spring to herald the return of the life to vegetation. In many myths, the savior's body is anointed for burial, searched out by holy women and then reappears alive a few days later.

3) Similarly, the details of the crucifixion, burial and resurrection accounts are astonishingly similar to the events of several surviving popular novels from the same period in which two lovers are separated when one seems to have died and is unwittingly entombed alive. Grave robbers discover her reviving and kidnap her. Her lover finds the tomb empty, graveclothes still in place, and first concludes she has been raised up from death and taken to heaven. Then, realizing what must have happened, he goes in search of her. During his adventures, he is sooner or later condemned to the cross or actually crucified, but manages to escape. When at length the couple is reunited, neither, having long imagined the other dead, can quite believe the lover is alive and not a ghost come to say farewell.

http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/robert_price/price-rankin/price1.html

If you are trying to use the prophecies of the Bible to discredit the Bible, you are headed down the wrong road. If that is your chosen method of debate, you will be a converted Christian soon   Come on over to the side of Truth my friend. we will welcome you with open arms

I have no need to do such a thing; the 'prophecies' discredit themselves.

[loco]

A ridiculous, blanket statement if ever there was one. Christianity has proven nothing and its continued existence is a consequence of a long traditon, authoritarianism, the weakness of human psychology in general, fear of death specifically and cultural memes.
No. I have no faith. I prefer knowledge. Faith is the blind leading the blind, the hope for that, which is not, the desire for magic and the denial of reality.

My specific example was that of being born and raised in Meso-America a thousand years ago. You would have never heard the name Christianity, Jesus, Moses or anything else related to your religion for that matter. Christians never have an adequate answer to this.
 

This is the approach most critical scholars take when examining the NT, rather than blindly assuming it to be a magic book, fulfilling magic prophecies of the cobbled together OT.
We have abundant evidence for this. In fact, a good deal of it is copied directly out of the OT. The slaughter of the innocents is taken right out of the Book of Exodus for example.

It is not. I do not think there is enough historical evidence to support a real Jesus of Nazareth, never mind the fact that Nazareth didn't exist during the time of his alleged birth. But we have discussed this in other threads to considerable length. Below, a noted sceptic and biblical scholar:

http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/robert_price/price-rankin/price1.html

I have no need to do such a thing; the 'prophecies' discredit themselves.

Confronting the Copycat Thesis
In spite of having been pronounced dead even by intelligent skeptics, the thesis that Judaism and Christianity consist merely of stolen pagan myths and ideas continues to be promulgated by the uncritical and accepted by the gullible. Acharya S and her Christ Conspiracy are simply the latest recycling of the general thesis, but now, even Robert Price has promulgated aspects of it in his Deconstructing Jesus:
http://www.tektonics.org/copycat/copycathub.html

[Deicide]

You're right when you say there are many religions that "claim" that there's is absolute truth. However, there is only one that has ever proven it! I know you don't believe, in spite of the evidence, that the Christian faith is the one absolute true faith.

However, do you believe that there is "one" absolute true faith?

You are also correct when you state that if we were raised in a different culture we would be dancing to a different tune. However, after being confronted with the facts of the Gospel, I would have to take a serious look at my beliefs. If I were raised a Jew for example or a Muslim, and I was challenged with the information I have today, I believe I would convert to Christianity.

As far as your statement that the New Testament writers wrote the Gospels to conform to the Old Testament prophecies, do you have any evidence that was in fact the case? Because to my knowledge there is no evidence to deny that those prophesies did in fact occur as stated in the New Testament.

I noticed in one of your previous posts that you referred to Jesus as the "ALLEGED" Jesus of Nazareth.

Are you saying the Jesus did not exist? Because that is an accepted fact by even the most outspoken skeptics of the Bible.

If you are trying to use the prophecies of the Bible to discredit the Bible, you are headed down the wrong road. If that is your chosen method of debate, you will be a converted Christian soon  Come on over to the side of Truth my friend. we will welcome you with open arms

Christ a Fiction (1997)
Robert M. Price
 

I remember a particular Superboy comic book in which the Boy of Steel somehow discovers that in the future, he is thought to be as mythical as Peter Pan and Santa Claus. Indignant at this turn of events, he flies at faster than light speed and enters the future to set the record straight. He does a few super-deeds and vindicates himself, then comes home. So Superboy winds up having the last laugh --or does he?

Of course, it is only fiction! The people in the future were quite right! Superboy is just as mythical as Santa Claus and Peter Pan.

This seems to me a close parallel to the efforts of Christian apologists to vindicate as sober history the story of a supernatural savior who was born of a virgin, healed the sick, raised the dead, changed water into wine, walked on water, rose from the grave and ascended bodily into the sky.

I used to think, when I myself was a Christian apologist, a defender of the evangelical faith, that I had done a pretty respectable job of vindicating that story as history. I brought to bear a variety of arguments I now recognize to be fallacious, such as the supposed closeness of the gospels to the events they record, their ostensibly use of eyewitness testimony, etc. Now, in retrospect, I judge that my efforts were about as effective in the end as Superboy's! When all is said and done, he remains a fiction.

One caveat: I intend to set forth, briefly, some reasons for the views I now hold. I do not expect that the mere fact that I was once an evangelical apologist and now see things differently should itself count as evidence that I must be right. That would be the genetic fallacy. It would be just as erroneous to think that John Rankin [?] must be right in having embraced evangelical Christianity since he had once been an agnostic Unitarian and repudiated it for the Christian faith. In both cases, what matters is the reasons for the change of mind, not merely the fact of it.

Having got that straight, let me say that I think there are four senses in which Jesus Christ may be said to be a "fiction."

First (and, I warn you, this one takes by far the most explaining): It is quite likely, though certainly by no means definitively provable, that the central figure of the gospels is not based on any historical individual. Put simply, not only is the theological "Christ of faith" a synt hetic construct of theologians, a symbolic "Uncle Sam" figure. But if you could travel through time, like Superboy, and you went back to First-Cen tury Nazareth, you would not find a Jesus living there. Why conclude this? There are three reasons, which I must oversimplify for time's sake.

1) In broad outline and in detail, the life of Jesus as portrayed in the gospels corresponds to the worldwide Mythic Hero Archetype in which a divine hero's birth is supernaturally predicted and conceived, the infant hero escapes attempts to kill him, demonstrates his precocious wisdom already as a child, receives a divine commission, defeats demons, wins acclaim, is hailed as king, then betrayed, losing popular favor, executed, often on a hilltop, and is vindicated and taken up to heaven.

These features are found world wide in heroic myths and epics. The more closely a supposed biography, say that of Hercules, Apollonius of Tyana, Padma Sambhava, of Gautama Buddha, corresponds to this plot formula, the more likely the historian is to conclude that a historical figure has been transfigured by myth.

And in the case of Jesus Christ, where virtually every detail of the story fits the mythic hero archetype, with nothing left over, no "secular," biographical data, so to speak, it becomes arbitrary to assert that there must have been a historical figure lying back of the myth. There may have been, but it can no longer be considered particularly probable, and that's all the historian can deal with: probabilities.

There may have been an original King Arthur, but there is no particular reason to think so. There may have been a historical Jesus of Nazareth, too, but, unlike most of my colleagues in the Jesus Seminar, I don't think we can simply assume there was.

2) Specifically, the passion stories of the gospels strike me as altogether too close to contemporary myths of dying and rising savior gods including Osiris, Tammuz, Baal, Attis, Adonis, Hercules, and Asclepius. Like Jesus, these figures were believed to have once lived a life upon the earth, been killed, and risen shortly thereafter. Their deaths and resurrections were in most cases ritually celebrated each spring to herald the return of the life to vegetation. In many myths, the savior's body is anointed for burial, searched out by holy women and then reappear alive a few days later.

3) Similarly, the details of the crucifixion, burial and resurrection accounts are astonishingly similar to the events of several surviving popular novels from the same period in which two lovers are separated when one seems to have died and is unwittingly entombed alive. Grave robbers discover her reviving and kidnap her. Her lover finds the tomb empty, graveclothes still in place, and first concludes she has been raised up from death and taken to heaven. Then, realizing what must have happened, he goes in search of her. During his adventures, he is sooner or later condemned to the cross or actually crucified, but manages to escape. When at length the couple is reunited, neither, having long imagined the other dead, can quite believe the lover is alive and not a ghost come to say farewell.

There have been two responses to such evidence by apologists. First, they have contended that all these myths are plagiarized from the gospels by pagan imitators, pointing out that some of the evidence is post-Christian 2E But much is in fact preChristian. And it is significant that the early Christian apologists argued that these parallels to the gospels were counterfeits in advance, by Satan, who knew the real thing would be coming along later and wanted to throw people off the track. This is like the desperate Nineteenth-Century attempts of fundamentalists to claim that Satan had created fake dinosaur bones to tempt the faithful not to believe in Genesis! At any rate, and this is my point, no one would have argued this way had the pagan myths of dead and resurrected gods been more recent than the Christian.

Second, in a variation on the theme, C.S. Lewis suggested that in Jesus' case "myth became fact." He admitted the whole business about the Mythic Hero archetype and the similarity to the pagan saviors, only he made them a kind of prophetic charade, creations of the yearning human heart, dim adumbrations of the incarnation of Christ before it actually happened. The others were myths, but this one actually happened.

In answer to this, I think of an anecdote told by my colleague Bruce Chilton, how, staying the weekend at the home of a friend, he was surprised to see that the guest bathroom was festooned with a variety of towels filched from the Hilton, the Ramada Inn, the Holiday Inn, etc. Which was more likely, he asked: that representatives from all these hotels had sneaked into his friend's bathroom and each copied one of the towel designs? Or that his friend had swiped them from their hotels?

Lewis's is an argument of desperation which no one would think of making unless he was hell-bent on believing that, though all the other superheroes (Batman, Captain Marvel, the Flash) were fictions, Superboy was in fact genuine.

3) The New Testament epistles can be read quite naturally as presupposing a period in which Christians did not yet believe their savior god had been a figure living on earth in the recent historical past. Pail, for instance, never even mentions Jesus performing healings and even as a teacher. Twice he cites what he calls "words of the Lord," but even conservative New Testament scholars admit he may as easily mean prophetic revelations from the heavenly Christ. Paul attributes the death of Jesus not to Roman or Jewish governments, but rather to the designs of evil "archon," angels who rule this fallen world. Romans and 1 Peter both warn Christians to watch their step, reminding them that the Roman authorities never punish the righteous, but only the wicked. How they have said this if they knew of the Pontius Pilate story?

The two exceptions, 1 Thessalonians and 2 Timothy, epistles that do blame Pilate or Jews for the death of Jesus, only serve to prove the rule. Both can easily be shown on other grounds to be non-Pauline and later than the gospels.

Jesus was eventually "historicized," redrawn as a human being of the past (much as Samson, Enoch, Jabal, Gad, Joshua the son of Nun, and various other ancient Israelite gods had already been). As a part of this process, there were various independent attempts to locate Jesus in recent history by laying the blame for his death on this or that likely candidate, well known tyrants including Herod Antipas, Pontius Pilate, and even Alexander Jannaeus in the first century BC! Now, if the death of Jesus were an actual historical event well known to eyewitnesses of it, there is simply no way such a variety of versions, differing on so fundamental a point, could ever have arisen!

And if early Christians had actually remembered the passion as a series of recent events, why does the earliest gospel crucifixion account spin out the whole terse narrative from quotes cribbed without acknowledgement from Psalm 22? Why does 1 Peter have nothing more detailed than Isaiah 53 to flesh out his account of the sufferings of Jesus? Why does Matthew supplement Mark's version, not with historical tradition or eyewitness memory, but with more quotes, this time from Zechariah and the Wisdom of Solomon?

Thus I find myself more and more attracted to the theory, once vigorously debated by scholars, now smothered by tacit consent, that there was no historical Jesus lying behind the stained glass of the gospel mythology. Instead, he is a fiction.

Rejoinders:

1) We deem them myths not because of a prior bias that there can be no miracles, but because of the Principle of Analogy, the only alternative to which is believing everything in The National Inquirer. If we do not use the standard of current-day experience to evaluate claims from the past, what other standard is there? And why should we believe that God or Nature used to be in the business of doing things that do not happen now? Isn't God supposed to be the same yesterday, today, and forever?

2) The apologists' claim that there was "too little time between the death of Jesus and the writing of the gospels for legends to develop" is circular, presupposing a historical Jesus living at a particular time. 40 years is easily enough time for legendary expansion anyway, but the Christ-Myth Theory does not require that the Christ figure was created in Pontius Pilate's time, only that later, Pilate's time was retrospectively chosen as a location for Jesus.

a) See Jan Vansina, Oral Tradition as History on the tendency in oral tradition to keep updating mythic foundational events, keeping them always at a short distance, a couple of generations before one's own time.

b) And even if there were a historical Jesus and we knew we had eyewitness reports, the apologists fail to take into account recent studies which show that eyewitness testimony, especially of unusual events, is the most unreliable of all, that people tend to rewrite what they saw in light of their accustomed categories and expectations. Thus Strauss was right on target suggesting that the early Christians simply imagined Jesus fulfilling the expected deeds of messiahs and prophets.

3) It is special pleading to dismiss all similar stories as myths and to insist that this case must be different. If you do this, admit it, you are a fideist, no longer an apologist (if there is any difference!).

Second, the "historical Jesus" reconstructed by New Testament scholars is always a reflection of the individual scholars who reconstruct him. Albert Schweitzer was perhaps the single exception, and he made it painfully clear that previous questers for the historical Jesus had merely drawn self-portraits. All unconsciously used the historical Jesus as a ventriloquist dummy. Jesus must have taught the truth, and their own beliefs must have been true, so Jesus must have taught those beliefs. (Of course, every biblicist does the same! "I said it! God believes it! That settles it!"). Today's Politically Correct "historical Jesuses" are no different, being mere clones of the scholars who design them.

C.S. Lewis was right about this in The Screwtape Letters: "Each 'historical Jesus' is unhistorical. The documents say what they say and cannot be added to." But, as apologists so often do, he takes fideism as the natural implication when agnosticism would seem called for. What he imagines the gospels so clearly to "say" is the mythic hero! When, in his essay, "Modern Theology and Biblical Criticism," Lewis pulls rank as a self-declared expert and denies that the gospels are anything like ancient myths, one can only wonder what it was he must have been smoking in that ever-present pipe of his!

My point here is simply that, even if there was a historical Jesus lying back of the gospel Christ, he can never be recovered. If there ever was a historical Jesus, there isn't one any more. All attempts to recover him turn out to be just modern remythologizings of Jesus. Every "historical Jesus" is a Christ of faith, of somebody's faith. So the "historical Jesus" of modern scholarship is no less a fiction.

Third, Jesus as the personal savior, with whom people claim, as I used to, to have a "personal relationship" is in the nature of the case a fiction, essentially a psychological projection, an "imaginary playmate." It is no different at all from pop-psychological "visualization" exercises, or John Bradshaw's gimmick of imagining a healing encounter with loved ones of the past, or Jean Houston leading Hillary Clinton in an admittedly imaginary dialogue with Eleanor Roosevelt.

I suppose there is nothing wrong with any of this, but one ought to recognize it, as Hillary Clinton and Jean Houston, and John Bradshaw do, as imaginative fiction. And so with the personal savior.

The alternative is something like channeling. You have "tuned in" to the spirit of an ancient guru, named Jesus, and you are receiving revelations from him, usually pretty trivial stuff, minor conscience proddings and the like. Some sort of imaginary telepathy.

In fact I don't believe most evangelical pietists mean anything by "having a personal relationship with Christ" than a fancy, overblown name for reading the Bible and saying their prayers. But if they did really refer to some kind of a "personal relationship," it would in effect be a case of channeling. I suspect this is why fundamentalists who condemn New Age channelers do not dismiss it as a fraud pure and simple (though obviously it is), but instead think that Ramtha and the others are channeling demons. If they said it was sheer delusion, they know where the other four fingers would wind up pointing!

Especially in view of the fact that the piety of "having a personal relationship with Christ" and "inviting him into your heart" is alien to the New Testament and is never intimated there as far as I can see, it is amazing to me that evangelicals elevate it to the shibboleth of salvation! Unless you have a personal relationship with Jesus, buster, one day you will be boiling in Hell. Sheesh! Talk about the fury of a personal savior scorned!

No one ever heard of this stuff till the German Pietist movement of the Eighteenth Century. To make a maudlin type of devotionalism the password to heaven is like the fringe Pentecostal who tells you can't get into heaven unless you speak in tongues. "You ask me how I know he lives?" asks the revival chorus. "He lives within my heart." Exactly! A figment.

Fourth, Christ is a fiction in that Christ functions, in an unnoticed and equivocal way, as shorthand for a vast system of beliefs and institutions on whose behalf he is invoked. Put simply, this means that when an evangelist or an apologist invites you to have faith "in Christ," they are in fact smuggling in a great number of other issues. For example, Chalcedonian Christology, the doctrine of the Trinity, the Protestant idea of faith and grace, a particular theory of biblical inspiration and literalism, habits of church attendance, etc. These are all distinct and open questions. Theologians have debated them for many centuries and still debate them. Rank and file believers still debate them, as you know if you have ever spent time talking with one of Jehovah's Witnesses or a Seventh Day Adventist. If you hear me say that and your first thought is "Oh no, those folks aren't real Christians," you're just proving my point! Who gave Protestant fundamentalists the copyright on the word Christian?

No evangelist ever invites people to accept Christ by faith and then to start examining all these other associated issues for themselves. Not one! The Trinity, biblical inerrancy, for some even anti-Darwinism, are non-negotiable. You cannot be genuinely saved if you don't tow the party line on these points. Thus, for them, "to accept Christ" means "to accept Trinitarianism, biblicism, creationism, etc." And this in turn means that "Christ" is shorthand for this whole raft of doctrines and opinions, all of which one is to accept "by faith," on someone else's say-so.

When Christ becomes a fiction in this sense he is an umbrella for an unquestioning acceptance of what some preacher or institution tells us to believe. And this is nothing new, no mutant distortion of Christianity. Paul already requires "the taking of every thought captive to Christ," already insists on "the obedience of faith." Here Christ has already become what he was to Dostoyevsky's Grand Inquisitor, a euphemism for the dogmatic party line of an institution. Dostoyevsky's point, of course, was that the "real" Jesus stands opposed to this use of his name to sanction religious oppression. But remember, though it is a noble one, Dostoyevsky's Jesus is also a piece of fiction! It is, after all, "The Parable of the Grand Inquisitor."

So, then, Christ may be said to be a fiction in the four senses that 1) it is quite possible that there was no historical Jesus. 2) Even if there was, he is lost to us, the result being that there is no historical Jesus available to us. And 3) the Jesus who "walks with me and talks with me and tells me I am his own" is an imaginative visualization and in the nature of the case can be nothing more than a fiction. And finally, 4) "Christ" as a corporate logo for this and that religious institution is a euphemistic fiction, not unlike Ronald McDonald, Mickey Mouse, or Joe Camel, the purpose of which is to get you to swallow a whole raft of beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors by an act of simple faith, short-circuiting the dangerous process of thinking the issues out to your own conclusions.

[Deicide]

Confronting the Copycat Thesis
In spite of having been pronounced dead even by intelligent skeptics, the thesis that Judaism and Christianity consist merely of stolen pagan myths and ideas continues to be promulgated by the uncritical and accepted by the gullible. Acharya S and her Christ Conspiracy are simply the latest recycling of the general thesis, but now, even Robert Price has promulgated aspects of it in his Deconstructing Jesus:
http://www.tektonics.org/copycat/copycathub.html

Turkel is a prison librarian and a fraud. He refutes nothing and simply uses ad hominems. He never posts the other side's view point. Worthless drivel.

"6) J. P. Holding, ex-prison librarian, self-styled web-pologist, who does not have a graduate degree in theology, has not pursued a seminary degree, and his self-styled study of the Bible's original languages has been shown to be deficient. What Holding specializes in is inventing imaginative denials of questions raised by far more informed biblical scholars than himself."

"The disreputable and untrustworthy Christian apologist 'James Patrick Holding' has been receiving and releasing malicious, false and libelous information about me, provided to him by a mentally ill fugitive wanted on three felonies, including child abduction. In his typically vicious, unprofessional, unethical and immoral manner, Holding first revealed my name--also gained from this felonious source and now posted all over the internet--and then passed along the false and libelous material to his fanatic followers, who have since threatened me with further exposure of personal information and lies received from this deranged criminal, who committed violent crimes against me and my small son. Because of this despicable behavior, it is obvious that this man, JP Holding, has no integrity, and that his writings should not be given credibility."
(snip)

"And remember, I didn't start this battle--Holding did, and he continues it, as I have never had any interest in him. (Holding is so obsessed with me that my name is mentioned on almost 150 pages of his website.) In fact, he epitomizes everything I criticize about religion: To wit, that human beings become vicious and nasty defending infantile and intangible concepts by attacking living, breathing human beings. If Holding were a compassionate and pleasant individual--which he clearly is not--he would actually find me to be a very nice and helpful person. Because of his conditioning, he cannot. And THAT'S the whole problem with religion in the first place."

"Those who click the link will find that it is posted on TSR Online rather than on Turkel's site. We have it here, because Turkel deleted it from his website, after some of the material in it proved embarrassing to him, and replaced it with an edited version that had removed the embarrassing statements, such as his now discredited claim that his position on the meaning of Hosea 1:4 was shared by 'commentators of all stripes' and his pledge to his readers that he would never again 'dignify' any of my articles by replying to them, because I was not worth the time it would take to do so."
(snip)

"Here, of course, is a familiar Turkel tactic. When he can't answer an opponent, all is not lost, because he can always hide his inability to refute arguments under a camouflage of sarcasm and insults. If he just calls his opponents' detailed arguments and rebuttals 'incessant blather' that would be read only by someone 'who holds an equitable stake in the local funny farm,' he knows that his sycophantic choir members, lacking any critical-thinking skills, will react with, 'Hey, look how our man is pulverizing Till.' That he would resort to hiding his inability to reply to me beneath an insult that refers to a mental institution and the problems that it treats as 'the local funny farm' speaks volumes about the deficiencies in Turkel's Christian ethics. Such misguided attempts at humor are not at all unusual in his articles, as is evident here, where he used children afflicted with muscular dystrophy as a metaphorical insult hurled at one of his opponents, and also used the scattered wreckage of the Columbia space shuttle as another metaphorical claim of what he had done to the same opponent's 'butt.'"

TURKEL: (Till) "committed several enormous gaffes that would send more honest men to the confessional booth."
TILL: "And just what are those 'gaffes'? Were they more 'enormous' than Turkel's double-sided claim that the gospels were both evangelical and nonevangelical in their intents? Were they more 'enormous' than Turkel's claim that 'rise again' was expressed in Greek by using anestimi twice? Were they more 'enormous' than his use of transliterate when he meant translate and then turned around and repeated the same mistake? Were they more 'enormous' than Turkel's foot-in-mouth gaffe when he defended the authenticity of the ossuary of 'James the brother of Jesus,' which has turned out to be a proven fake and brought about the arrest of Oded Golan, who 'discovered' it? Were they more 'enormous' than Turkel's biblically ignorant claim that there are no cases recorded in the Bible of anyone ever using a restroom? Were they more 'enormous' than Turkel's repeated attempts to defend the inerrancy of the Bible while at the same time chanting 'ma besay-il' (it doesn't matter) that inconsistencies are in the Bible? Were they more 'enormous' than the ones that I identified in 'The "Goofy Gaffe" Exchanges on the Theology Web'? Again, I would have to fill an entire page with nothing but links in order to list all of the places where Turkel has put his foot into his mouth. This has required me many times to say in my replies to him that inconsistency is about his only consistency, as I did here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and... well, you get the idea. Turkel has been so inconsistent in his articles that I have made this statement no telling how many times in winding down my exposures of his inconsistencies."

"One thing to add here is against Holding's now more adamant claim that no one in antiquity had notions of improving their condition. That is outrageous. It is not what any of the scholars he quotes have ever argued--to the contrary, they would all be appalled by what he claims they said. I ask all readers to stop trusting Holding, and actually buy or borrow those books that Holding quotes out of context and read them. Then you will see how those scholars actually discuss the total situation very differently than Holding lets on. On this issue in particular the evidence is overwhelmingly against Holding, as I explain in Chapter 10 (where I also present examples of his gross misrepresentation of the arguments of Bruce Malina). But we needn't trust the opinions of scholars. We can go to the primary evidence. And here Lucian's autobiographical account in My Dream again provides refutation enough: there he explains how his family sought to improve his prospects by buying him an apprenticeship to a stonecutter, and how Lucian in turn regarded it as far better an improvement in his situation to become a scholar instead. Yet according to Holding, no one in antiquity thought like this or acted like this. Holding simply isn't telling the truth."

"In an effort to get the other viewpoint on what I was reading, I turned to the Tektonics website, which I had heard was very good. I felt completely sick when I started reading that guys articles. I had expected to find an intelligent counter-argument to the many excellent articles I had encountered. Instead I found nothing by bitter sarcasm combined with personal attacks on the authors of the articles. In my searching of that web page I found nothing at all that even remotely addressed the relevent issues. Instead it reinforced my growing impression that many Christians are bitter, twisted and arrogant, and would do well to actually get out into the real world for once."

http://the-anointed-one.com/what.htm

Etc., Etc....

[loco]

Jesus is a historical figure, and here is the historical evidence:

Josephus Jewish Antiquities (c.93 C.E.)
(later interpolations in brackets)

"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. [He was the Messiah.] And when Pilate, at the suggestion of the principal men amongst us, had condemned him to the cross, those that loved him at the first did not forsake him [for he appeared to them alive again at the third day; as the divine prophets had foretold these and ten thousand other wonderful things concerning him]. And the tribe of Christians, so named from him, are not extinct at this date.1


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Pliny the Younger Letter to Trajan (c.111-117 C.E.)

"...they maintained that their fault or error amounted to nothing more than this: they were in the habit of meeting on a certain fixed day before sunrise and reciting an antiphonal hymn to Christ as God, and binding themselves with an oath not to commit any crime, but to abstain from all acts of theft, robbery and adultery, from breaches of faith, from repudiating a trust when called upon to honour it."2


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Tacitus Roman Annals (c.115-117 C.E.)

"They got their name from Christ, who was executed by sentence of the procurator Pontius Pilate in the reign of Tiberius. That checked the pernicious superstition for a short time, but it broke out afresh--not only in Judea, where the plague first arose, but in Rome itself, where all the horrible and shameful things in the world collect and find a home."3


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Sanhedrin 43a (200-500 C.E.)

"On the eve of the Passover Yeshu4 was hanged. For forty days before the execution took place, a herald went forth and cried, 'He is going forth to be stoned because he has practiced sorcery and enticed Israel to apostacy. Any one who can say anything in his favour, let him come forward and plead on his behalf. But since nothing was brought forward in his favour he was hanged on the eve of Passover!"5


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Josephus Jewish Antiquities (Arabic summary)

"At this time there was a wise man who was called Jesus. And his conduct was good, and he was known to be virtuous. And many people from among the Jews and the other nations became his disciples. Pilate condemned him to be crucified and to die. And those who had become his disciples did not abandon his discipleship. They reported that he had appeared to themafter his crucifixion and that he was alive; accordingly, he was perhaps the Messiah concerning whom the prophets have recounted wonders." 6

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Endnotes
1. Antiquities xviii. 33 (early second century) from F.F. Bruce, Jesus and Christian Origins Outside the New Testament (Grand 2. Rapids: Eerdmans, 1974), 37.
3. Pliny, Epistles x.96, from Bruce, p.26.
4. Tacitus, Annals xv, 44, from Bruce, p. 22.
5. Talmudic designation of Jesus.
"Sanhedrin," vol 3 of Nezikin, Babylonian Talmud, edited by Isidore Epstein, reprint (London: Soncino, 1938), 281.
6. Arabic summary, presumably of Antiquities 18.63. From Agapios' Kitab al-'Unwan ("Book of the Title," 10th c.).
The translation belongs to Shlomo Pines. See also James H. Charlesworth, Jesus Within Judaism.

[loco]

Sorry, STella!  Your thread has been hijacked. 

Trapezkerl, we should discuss this in the multitude of threads dedicated to the historicity of Jesus.

[Butterbean]

As for your socalled prophecies, NT writers wrote the Gospels to conform to the OT and I can cite many 'prophecies' that were not fulfilled and you just would ignore them.

If you're not talking about future prophecies such as mark of the beast/antichrist stuff, to which ones are you referring?

[Deicide]

If you're not talking about future prophecies such as mark of the beast/antichrist stuff, to which ones are you referring?

Isaiah 17:1. Damascus is predicted to cease to be a city and yet it remains one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world.

Jeremiah 49:33 predicts that Hazor will become an everlasting wasteland in which humans will never again dwell. In the KJV it is said that dragons will come to inhabit the land. This has not happened.

Zechariah 10:11.The Nile is predicted to dry up. This has not happened.

There are numerous others. As a fundy you see what you want to see and not what the evidence tells you and you try to rationalise the evidence so that it fits your bible inspired picture of the world.

[Deicide]

Jesus is a historical figure, and here is the historical evidence:

Josephus Jewish Antiquities (c.93 C.E.)
(later interpolations in brackets)

"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. [He was the Messiah.] And when Pilate, at the suggestion of the principal men amongst us, had condemned him to the cross, those that loved him at the first did not forsake him [for he appeared to them alive again at the third day; as the divine prophets had foretold these and ten thousand other wonderful things concerning him]. And the tribe of Christians, so named from him, are not extinct at this date.1


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Pliny the Younger Letter to Trajan (c.111-117 C.E.)

"...they maintained that their fault or error amounted to nothing more than this: they were in the habit of meeting on a certain fixed day before sunrise and reciting an antiphonal hymn to Christ as God, and binding themselves with an oath not to commit any crime, but to abstain from all acts of theft, robbery and adultery, from breaches of faith, from repudiating a trust when called upon to honour it."2


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Tacitus Roman Annals (c.115-117 C.E.)

"They got their name from Christ, who was executed by sentence of the procurator Pontius Pilate in the reign of Tiberius. That checked the pernicious superstition for a short time, but it broke out afresh--not only in Judea, where the plague first arose, but in Rome itself, where all the horrible and shameful things in the world collect and find a home."3


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Sanhedrin 43a (200-500 C.E.)

"On the eve of the Passover Yeshu4 was hanged. For forty days before the execution took place, a herald went forth and cried, 'He is going forth to be stoned because he has practiced sorcery and enticed Israel to apostacy. Any one who can say anything in his favour, let him come forward and plead on his behalf. But since nothing was brought forward in his favour he was hanged on the eve of Passover!"5


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Josephus Jewish Antiquities (Arabic summary)

"At this time there was a wise man who was called Jesus. And his conduct was good, and he was known to be virtuous. And many people from among the Jews and the other nations became his disciples. Pilate condemned him to be crucified and to die. And those who had become his disciples did not abandon his discipleship. They reported that he had appeared to themafter his crucifixion and that he was alive; accordingly, he was perhaps the Messiah concerning whom the prophets have recounted wonders." 6

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Endnotes
1. Antiquities xviii. 33 (early second century) from F.F. Bruce, Jesus and Christian Origins Outside the New Testament (Grand 2. Rapids: Eerdmans, 1974), 37.
3. Pliny, Epistles x.96, from Bruce, p.26.
4. Tacitus, Annals xv, 44, from Bruce, p. 22.
5. Talmudic designation of Jesus.
"Sanhedrin," vol 3 of Nezikin, Babylonian Talmud, edited by Isidore Epstein, reprint (London: Soncino, 1938), 281.
6. Arabic summary, presumably of Antiquities 18.63. From Agapios' Kitab al-'Unwan ("Book of the Title," 10th c.).
The translation belongs to Shlomo Pines. See also James H. Charlesworth, Jesus Within Judaism.

We have been through all of these 'references' a million times. We can rehash it again for the millioneth time but not now as it is late here and I am off to bed.

[OzmO]

How about :

2 Samuel 7,

7:13  He shall build an house for my name, and I will stablish the throne of his kingdom for ever.

7:16  And thine house and thy kingdom shall be established for ever before thee: thy throne shall be established for ever.

Where is Solomons kingdom?

Psalms

89:3  I have made a covenant with my chosen, I have sworn unto David my servant,   
89:4 Thy seed will I establish for ever, and build up thy throne to all generations.
89:34  My covenant will I not break, nor alter the thing that is gone out of my lips.   
89:35 Once have I sworn by my holiness that I will not lie unto David.   
89:36 His seed shall endure for ever, and his throne as the sun before me.   
89:37 It shall be established for ever as the moon, and as a faithful witness in heaven. Selah.