“read as” is doing a lot of heavy lifting. Most scholars say they were written well after the fact (decades to generations after), after a bunch of oral tradition related changes crept in. Plus, they were sort of down selected from a much larger corpus.
So this is just a narrative technique rather than an actual eyewitness account.
By “well after the fact”, it’s still within the lifetime of eyewitnesses. Contrasted with other historical records, it’s pretty good. Like Alexander the Great being written about 800 years after the fact, or some details about Julius Caesar being written down 200 years after the fact which nobody disputes. For something we can archaeologically prove which also happened at the time - the pompeii disaster - there is one record 30 years later. Despite it being an event witnessed by hundreds of thousands and likely having influential romans among it’s victims. You’re really overestimating the frequency of writings and documentation from the first century. In which the New Testament is abnormal in that it has a high frequency. So something that clearly was a big deal did happen. The traditions as well carried across societies, so must have been rooted in fact. As for the larger corpus - those were the centuries later forgeries that were removed for that reason - because they were much later and not seen as reliable. Some of them were attributed to more important figures also, like Thomas. So the early Church clearly cared about accuracy.
personally i am a fan of “keep your religion to yourself”, “don’t use the veil of the church as a means to make money”, “help those that others cast out, like sex workers”, “don’t engage in stereotype”, and “rich people go to hell”.
It’s this kind of mental gymnastics that killed church for me. Jesus had a pretty decent moral framework set up, but people mangled into a bunch of hocus pocus.
i mean it’s mostly all metaphor and allegory, meant to teach you lessons rather than to act as a historical document.
it’s like a book of fables for people who think animals are silly
The four gospels read as eyewitness accounts and reports of a real person, not as fables and allegories.
“read as” is doing a lot of heavy lifting. Most scholars say they were written well after the fact (decades to generations after), after a bunch of oral tradition related changes crept in. Plus, they were sort of down selected from a much larger corpus.
So this is just a narrative technique rather than an actual eyewitness account.
By “well after the fact”, it’s still within the lifetime of eyewitnesses. Contrasted with other historical records, it’s pretty good. Like Alexander the Great being written about 800 years after the fact, or some details about Julius Caesar being written down 200 years after the fact which nobody disputes. For something we can archaeologically prove which also happened at the time - the pompeii disaster - there is one record 30 years later. Despite it being an event witnessed by hundreds of thousands and likely having influential romans among it’s victims. You’re really overestimating the frequency of writings and documentation from the first century. In which the New Testament is abnormal in that it has a high frequency. So something that clearly was a big deal did happen. The traditions as well carried across societies, so must have been rooted in fact. As for the larger corpus - those were the centuries later forgeries that were removed for that reason - because they were much later and not seen as reliable. Some of them were attributed to more important figures also, like Thomas. So the early Church clearly cared about accuracy.
Almost like it’s all a bunch of bullshit invented to control the masses 🤔
The foremost lesson being “obey authority figures or else”
personally i am a fan of “keep your religion to yourself”, “don’t use the veil of the church as a means to make money”, “help those that others cast out, like sex workers”, “don’t engage in stereotype”, and “rich people go to hell”.
Yeah. Funny how the most influential Christians all tend to forget those 🤔
“Treat women and children like property. Always blame victims. Take slaves from neighboring countries, never your own.”
Lots of great lessons in that holiest of books.
Second is “don’t question them”
But only mostly!
Catholicism truly believes you are eating Jesus’s body and drinking his blood at mass.
But it’s not cannibalism because the bread and wine still keep all their properties after turning into Jesus 🤓
https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/are-catholics-cannibals
It’s this kind of mental gymnastics that killed church for me. Jesus had a pretty decent moral framework set up, but people mangled into a bunch of hocus pocus.