(Part 2) Best christian ministry & leadership books according to redditors

http://www.amazon.com/Going-Clear-Scientology-Hollywood-ebook/dp/B00A9ET54E/ref=zg_bs_12773_2

This book will send him running for the hills. If he signs up with the Sea Org, he will sign a 1 Billion year contract and be essentially a slave for the "church". If he is a normal member, then he should basically expect to spend at least $100-200k on bullshit books, tapes, and "auditing" which does nothing but give the church a dossier on your "Subversive" thoughts. (Basically anything) they use this info to blackmail you into anything they want.

The book is a long read (or listen) but totally eye opening. I can't believe that the government caved to letting this made up religion have tax exemption. If your friend thinks any other "ancient" religion is bullshit, then it should be easy to spot that a religion made up 60 years ago by a psychopathic egomaniac to sell as many books as possible, is bullshit too.

But... Some people are fucking idiots and your friend may be one of these people (hopefully not). If your friend is this dumb, tell them that you know the secrets of OT3 and you will tell them for $5000. You will get the money, your friend will get used to spending money for made up knowledge, and you will know that your friend is a certifiable retard.

Good luck.

Thank you for writing Zealot, it was a joy to read. In it you argue that Luke's audience knew his nativity story was incorrect, but thought it was true nonetheless. You explain this apparent contradiction by saying that facts and truths used to be two different things. Can you expand on why we should reject the alternative explanation that people believed Luke because they weren't able to judge claims about the past accurately?

Context from Zealot:

> [Luke's] readers, still living under Roman dominion, would have known that Luke’s account of Quirinius’s census was factually inaccurate. Luke himself, writing a little more than a generation after the events he describes, knew that what he was writing was technically false. This is an extremely difficult matter for modern readers of the gospels to grasp, but Luke never meant for his story about Jesus’s birth at Bethlehem to be understood as historical fact.

well for one, christian persecution at the beginning is something of a myth - there were some persecutions, but they were isolated events.

there's this idea that the romans just hungrily wanted all the christians dead because they were christians. however, christians at the time WANTED to be martyred - it was preached by bishops as a noble thing, it was played up in christian literature, and whenever christians were arrested they did everything they could to not co-operate so they'd be executed. (for more info, read Candida Moss' "The Myth Of Persecution", and Catherine Nixey's "The Darkening Age")

if the romans were so giddy to execute, and the christians happy to be nixed, there would be no christianity today. there woulda been no christianity by the time of constantine, to be sure.

if you want to talk about a religion that's been persecuted and survived, try judaism. compared to that culture, christianity is a wimpy crybaby.

The biggest reason is Christianity, which forcibly suppressed and destroyed many ancient religions.

A great book about it is The Darkening Age on Amazon. Here's a link: The Darkening Age

This thread is kind of full of similar comments to yours, so I just wanted to drop this info somewhere:

In Reza Aslan's Zealot, the author acknowledges that Jesus (specifically, Jesus; not by a general title) was called a magician. What's interesting, Aslan argues, is that his being a magician isn't out of the ordinary. We aren't suppose to understand the expression as some kind of an accusation, no one is calling him a fake or a charlatan. Magic was something that existed for people of Jesus's time and place; miracle workers were frequent in and around the Temple and the holy lands.

The remarkable thing about Jesus, this particular Christ and healer, was that he did all his miracles for free. And that was crazy. Magicians and healers made a living off their "abilities," whatever they might have been. So Jesus, as a magician, had distinguished himself from a number of his contemporary miraclemen.

tldr; There are millions of us that feel the same way. I hope you don't forsake Christ in name in response to those around you who are forsaking Christ in deed.

__

I'm writing this during a break at work. Since I have to make it quick, I'll be recommending a lot of books. There is really too much here anyway to do justice to all of the questions you've put up, so even if I were to give a real, detailed response, I would probably have to resort to suggesting books anyway.

> 1.) I don't think that all of the Bible can be taken literally. I strongly believe in the sciences, so I think that Genesis was written either metaphorically or simply just to provide an explanation for creation. Are there others here that believe that or something similar? How do others respond to your beliefs?

There are many, many, many others who believe similarly. And not just recent people responding to evolution, there has long been a tradition of taking Genesis metaphorically. For a good group of scholars and prominent Christians that take a stand for a reading of Genesis that respects the way that science currently understands origins, see the Biologos Forum.

For a good book that shows the error of inerrancy, how it stunts your growth as a Christian and a moral agent, and how inerrancy limits either human free will or God's sovereignty see Thom Stark's excellent new book The Human Faces of God.

> 2.) Why does it seem that Christianity is such a hateful religion? I am very disappointed in many Christians because they spew hatred towards other instead of spreading love. I think that the energy that is going into the hatred that many spew could be used for good. Why aren't we putting these resources towards helping others? This would help bring people in instead of deter them away.

Again, millions of us feel the same way. It makes me sick as well. However, I don't think the answer is forsaking Christ in name in response to others forsaking Christ in deed.

There are many strands of the Christian faith that have strongly opposed violence of any sort. Look into the Anabaptists, the Mennonites. Podcasts from Trinity Mennonite are pretty good.

For a good book about Jesus and nonviolence see Jesus and Nonviolence by Walter Wink.

> 3.) How can people be against gay rights still? This is clearly religious issue and not an issue of morality. If you choose to follow the parts of the Bible that are against homosexuality, then why do you not feel the need to follow many of the other ridiculous laws that are in the Old Testament?

I'd like to stress that, again, there are millions of us that feel the same way. And many, many of those who still believe it's a sin think that we have no place emphasizing that in a world where LGBT teenagers are killing themselves from the humiliation. There are many, many of us that think that whether their lifestyle is "sinful" or not the only thing we should show them is love.

For more about interpreting the Bible in light of today's social issues, see Slaves, Women & Homosexuals: Exploring the Hermeneutics of Cultural Analysis by William J. Webb and Sex and the Single Savior by Dale B. Martin.

> Do you believe that the government has the right to say who can and cannot get married? Why can't this just be left up to each individual church?

I'm actually strongly in favor of civil unions for everyone. I wholeheartedly agree that I don't want the government defining marriage... and the only way for the government not to define marriage is for the government to take its hands off marriage altogether; whatever the sexual orientation of those getting married.

> 4.) This was a question that I was asked in my other post that I was unable to answer.

Yes, the penal satisfaction view of atonement has its shortcomings. It's not a completely bankrupt idea, but it takes a lot of nuance to convey it in a way that isn't altogether abhorrent and senseless.

The first Christians believed something similar to what we call today "Christus Victor" atonement.

For a picture of the varied atonement theories available for understanding what Jesus did on the cross, see A Community Called Atonement by Scot McKnight. For a list of ways to understand atonement in a contemporary context, see Proclaiming the Scandal of the Cross by Mark D. Baker. For more on a view of God that is consistent with the love of God as revealed in Jesus, see Rob Bell's Love Wins: A book about heaven, hell, and the fate of every person that ever lived.

> 5.) I asked this in the other post, so I feel that I should ask it here. How many of you do or will teach your children about other religions? Will you present them as options or will you completely write them off?

I'd be wholeheartedly open to exposing them to other religions. And I'd want to do it in a way that does them justice. Most Christian "worldviews" books frustrate me due to the way they portray other's religions. In the long run if you don't accurately portray the rest of the world and you try to shelter your children from it, they'll simply feel betrayed when they grow up and finally learn what's out there.

I believe Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life. I actually believe this. Why wouldn't I try to raise my children as Christians?

But again, I wouldn't want to misrepresent the other religions and I certainly wouldn't want to shelter my children from them. For a book that I feel shows the good from many of the world's most prominent religions, see Huston Smith's The World's Religions.

Just jumping in and reading the Fathers will seem far more daunting than reading the Bible cover to cover. There's an absolutely vast corpus and the geographical and temporal range in which these works were written is huge.

My suggestion is to start with an introduction:

Chadwick, Henry. The Early Church



Duchesne, Louis. Early History of the Christian Church


Pelikan, Jaroslav. The Christian Tradition: A History of the Development of Doctrine, Vol. 1


Then, once you've got enough background on an author (such as Irenaeus), check out a work by them (in Irenaeus' case, Against Heresies is a masterpiece). Or read a book specifically on that author. There's tons of stuff on Augustine, very little on Aphrahat. But ad fontes should be your standard. It's always best to read the Fathers themselves, but it can be really confusing to do so without any guidance.

I do this for a living, so if you want more specific recommendations or advice or guidance in reading an author, PM me.

So a few things first. Aslan's Zealot is not, in any way historical scholarship. It's pop history that is mostly dismissed among actual historians. Similarly, O'reilly's book is likewise almost useless since he is a journalist, not a historian. While both provide some interesting facts (mostly taken out of context) neither actually present an understanding of the historical Jesus as understood by historians.

Several I'd recommend are:

Ehrman, Bart's Jesus: Apocalyptic Prophet of the New Millennium
This book is written by one of the world's most well-respected historians on Early Christianity. This is also the very first book I had to read in graduate school on the historical Jesus and it's engaging and easy to read for non-historians. It also presents the view that the historical Jesus was an Apocalyptic prophet in the proper context -- which also happens to be what the vast majority of historians believe about the historical Jesus. Ehrman is also agnostic (like myself) but he doesn't attack religion.

Crossan, John Dominic: The Historical Jesus: The Life of a Mediterranean Jewish Peasant
This is another excellent book. This book like, Ehrman's attempts to pain a proper contextual understanding of the historical Jesus, but does it in a different light -- he focuses on who the man was rather than what his primary preaching message was.
Sanders, E.P.: The Historical Figure of Jesus
I'd only recommend this one if the other two have been finished. It focuses on Judaism and Christianity and the dynamics of the historical Jesus after he died and the effects he had on his early followers.

Please let me know if you have any other questions or if I can help in any other way.

No Man is an Island By Thomas Merton

Clowning in Rome By Henri Nouwen.

The Great Divorce By C.S. Lewis

Beginning to Pray By Archbishop Anthony Bloom

For the Life of the World By Fr Alexander Schmemann

Christ the Conqueror of Hell By Archbishop Hilarion Alfeyev

Christ the Eternal Tao By Hieromonk Damascene

The Way of the Pilgrim

Marriage as a Path to Holiness-Lives of Married Saints By David and Mary Ford

On the Incarnation By St Athanasius

On Social Justice By St Basil the Great

The Ladder of Divine Ascent By St John Climacus

I'm currently trying to finish Fr Seraphim Rose- His Life and Works for the third time and despite my apparent inability to complete it, I really do enjoy it.

Hah... you can get pieces of it in the following books:

The Book of Mammon

David O. McKay's Biography

some pieces are here: http://bycommonconsent.com/2010/03/03/correlation-an-uncorrelated-history-part-1-the-mormon-underground/

and here: http://www.wheatandtares.org/7190/dumbing-downsimplifying-the-gospel/

You get bits about Grant here: https://www.lds.org/ensign/1979/07/jedediah-and-heber-grant?lang=eng

And about Grant's mother: https://ojs.lib.byu.edu/spc/index.php/BYUStudies/article/viewFile/6918/6567

And even a comic book version of Harold B. Lee's christmas miracle here: https://www.lds.org/friend/2001/12/harold-b-lee-shares-christmas?lang=eng


But no, I know of no book that puts the whole thing together quite as succinctly. Once my current book comes out (It's done, just needs some editing); my next one will be "Honest Mormon Nuttiness" or "Nutty Mormon History" and this kind of connected tale comes out from it.

In a historical context, it's difficult to call things war crimes if there were no treaties or agreements about how to treat people during war. I'm going to assume you mean war crimes in the present moral sense.

On Reddit in particular, historical massacres committed by Christians are well known, for example, the first crusade's sack of Jerusalem was described as having the crusaders wading up to their ankles in blood of the dead - although the bloodshed may have been exaggerated to increase the glory of the triumph.

However, there are examples of similar Muslim massacres as well.

• When Nur al-Din recaptured Edessa from the Franks, the native Christian population was massacred or enslaved because of their supposed cooperation with the Franks. A Muslim historian recorded that "the sword blotted out the existence of all the Christians".
  
  
• After the Battle of Hattin in 1187, Saladin executed captured Templars and Hospitallers because they could not be ransomed and were considered dangerous. In this instance, Saladin even turned it into a sort of spectacle by having them executed by scholars and ascetics - which led to some unnecessary suffering as some of them botched the executions and had to take turns.
  
  
• Al-Ashraf Khalil, the Sultan of Egypt who destroyed the Crusaders States also was responsible for several massacres. When he conquered their final stronghold of Acre, he killed a band of Dominican monks who stayed behind in their convent. Some Christians fled to surrounding outposts, and even after the sultan promised them safe passage, he reneged on that promise and had those prisoners killed.
  
  
• And finally, lots of people contrast Saladin's conquest of Jerusalem to that of the First Crusade, in that Saladin did not sack the city and massacre the populace. However, primary accounts indicate that given the opportunity, Saladin would have conducted a sack and massacre similar to the First Crusade. In a letter written by Saladin shortly after the battle, he wrote that they did not want to negotiate with the Christians, and were "wishing only to shed the blood of the men and to reduce the women and children to slavery". And after he accepted a negotiated surrender, Saladin actually felt he had to make excuses about why he did not butcher the city - he emphasized that he just followed the advice of his advisors.
  
  
  To finish this off, both sides committed what would be considered war crimes in the modern day. However, it's an open question whether they would have been considered as morally abhorrent back then as they are today. The First Crusade's sack of Jerusalem was really no different than what would be expected of any Christian army storming a besieged city up to the middle ages (and to some degree, up until the industrial revolution). The story is the same for armies before Christianity - Greek city states occasionally massacred and enslaved enemy cities, Rome did the same. It's a little odd to expect armies of that time period to treat foreign populations better than they would treat their own countrymen.
  
  Short Summary: Both sides killed unarmed civilians and prisoners, but that wasn't that unusual back then.
  
  All the above incidents drawn from Thomas Asbridge's, The Crusades: The Authoritative History of the War For the Holy Land, which I highly recommend.

> I come from a very rural area of England but in my town alone we have an Anglican (High Church) church, a Catholic church, a Methodist church, a Baptist church, an Eastern Orthodox church, potentially some others I do not know about, and also there is a society of friends here.

Why not visit them all?

> However Works of Mercy are also an important part of the Catholic Church, so that point alone doesn't really help me decide, even though to me it's important that I am involved with a church which values Works of Mercy.

Works of Mercy should be something all Christians agree is important!

> The biggest issue in choosing which church to go to is that because I was not brought up religious at all and my family are so anti-religious I really don't know much about it, and have not explored my faith at all with anyone else so don't really know how I stand on a lot of the important divides between the denominations.

I suppose step one is learning what all these different groups teach, then. This is a surprisingly good introduction. For something more in depth, Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years is very good. If you really want to go in depth, A History of Doctrine (this is volume one of five) is pretty much comprehensive.

Of course, you shouldn't just sit in your house reading books. Get up and go visit all those churches you've mentioned. Speak with the priest/pastor/minister and ask them your questions about their church and it's teachings!

The King James Only Controversy: Can You Trust Modern Translations? by James White would probably be your best bet in understanding KJVO adherents.

Unfortunately, it is difficult for people with a Western Post-Enlightenment worldview to simply interpret what Pre-Modern Hellenistic Jews were writing, especially if unaware of the context.

I was supplying interpretations from biblical scholars and showing that there are multiple ways that people understand Jesus' divinity. I wasn't making any value statements that they are better or even exclusive of one another. These are just the ways that people read the text.

Edit: If you want to read some biblical scholars and their interpretations of what Jesus meant by claiming divinity.

[N.T. Wright- Jesus and the Victory of God] (http://www.amazon.com/Victory-Christian-Origins-Question-Volume/dp/0800626826)

[Marcus Borg- Jesus: A New Vision] (http://www.amazon.com/Jesus-Vision-Spirit-Culture-Discipleship/dp/0060608145)

[Richard Bauckham- Jesus and the God of Israel] (http://www.amazon.com/Jesus-God-Israel-Testaments-Christology/dp/0802845592)

[John Dominic Crossan- Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography] (http://www.amazon.com/Jesus-Revolutionary-John-Dominic-Crossan/dp/006180035X)

[Reza Aslan- Zealot] (http://www.amazon.com/Zealot-Life-Times-Jesus-Nazareth/dp/0812981480) Edit 2: Apparently his credentials are in some dispute and this particular book is pretty "pop theology" but I found this [post] (http://www.patheos.com/blogs/peterenns/2013/08/two-scholars-respond-to-the-actual-content-of-reza-aslans-take-on-jesus/) by a theologian I respect that gives some insight into the whole thing.

[Thomas J.J. Altizer- Contemporary Jesus] (http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1876258.Contemporary_Jesus)

Really interesting book, and yes, the Christian mythology of their origins is pretty much crap.

Mark S. Smith The Early History of God: Yahweh and the Other Deities in Ancient Israel and The Origins of Biblical Monotheism.

Israel Finkelstein and Neil Asher Silberman The Bible Unearthed: Archaeology's New Vision of Ancient Israel and the Origin of Sacred Texts

Thomas L. Thompson The Mythic Past: Biblical Archaeology And The Myth Of Israel

> Christian here, and I am honestly looking to find what atheists believe is the best evidence against christianity or the Bible.

The best argument against it is that there is no credible evidence to support it in the first place. This might not agree with your current thinking but I will politely challenge you to come up with the best evidence you think demonstrates that Jesus is/was the Earthly avatar of the creator of the universe.

The bible itself is not evidence. The bible is the claim. Consider that there is no evidence outside the bible from the time the bible takes place that supports the existence of Jesus. All the mentions of Jesus outside the bible occur many decades after he was supposed to have lived. Worse, the gospel accounts are anonymous.

We know enough about the history of the bible from a literary perspective to know that it was written by men. (See my notes at the bottom of this comment.) What you think of the bible today is a collection of documents that was edited and copied repeatedly, then voted on by the Council of Nicaea - some books were omitted from the canon even though they are referenced by other books in the bible that are canon.

A few things worth pointing out:

• If you accept evolution, then there was no first human. If this is the case, then where did original sin come from?
  
• The Exodus did not happen. Even Jewish religious scholars almost universally agree that the evidence that should be there just isn't.
  
• Think about why Mary and Joseph had to travel in order to be counted for the census. Romans were far more efficient than that and were interested in where people lived, and not where they were born. The short answer is that the prophecy required Jesus to be born in Bethlehem, so the census was used as an excuse to explain why he was born there and not in Nazareth, where his parents lived. The bible is filled with these kinds of odd things.
  
  Those are three things off the top of my head. Here's one list that has many more. Another list. One more.
  
  In the end though, there's no credible evidence for anything supernatural in any religions. I don't believe in Jesus or Yahweh or Zeus or bigfoot or the Loch Ness monster for the same reasons - no credible, compelling evidence.
  
  Edit:
  
  Some additional resources as I think of them.
  
  
• A History of God by Karen Armstrong. Summarised in video form here. Details how Yahweh went from being one god in the Hebrew pantheon to the one true god of Abraham. There originally were several gods mentioned in the books that would become the bible, but were replaced by Yahweh. This explains a lot of really unusual things about Yahweh as a literary character. For instance, the first commandment suddenly makes sense - it was intended to cement the supreme authority of Yahweh in a time when many people were polytheists.
  
  
• Check out Bart Ehrman's work, such as Misquoting Jesus. It's a great introduction to textual analysis.
  
  
• Lastly, if you're still here and have not angrily closed your browser window in frustration, I strongly urge you to check out Qualia Soup's video titled The Burden of Proof. It demonstrates why it is your job to support your claims, rather than it is our job to disprove them. The person who makes a claim (ie, a god exists) is the person responsible for providing support for that claim.

Three books I recommend highly:

Thom Stark's The Human Faces of God. If you only read one book about the Bible before giving up on it, please make sure it's this one.

Scot McKnight's The King Jesus Gospel does a great job of laying out the ways in which the story the Bible is trying to tell has been distorted and misunderstood by a focus on personal salvation.

N.T. Wright's How God Became King makes a similar case, but fleshes it out from a more scholarly perspective and addresses the political implications of the gospel.

KJV-onlyism is weird man.

This guy is a fucking asshole.

I say this because I just read this book The Darkening Age: The Christian Destruction of the Classical World..

On one level, yes Christian mobs trashed shit and suborned the institutions of the empire. Meh.

On another level, a whole bunch of that stuff is eerily similar to events of the current day.

When they did it last time it was followed by 1000 years of shitty times that we had to recover from.

> no where in the Bible does the Lord go out of his way to scare people, he tries to love them

Nowhere? No holes in the ground swallowing people up as punishment for keeping plunder? Is it reasonable such dramatic and public punishment has any other major purpose than instilling fear in the rest of the people? How about killing people for lying to the church, which ends with "And great fear seized the whole church and all who heard of these things"? And that's just what happened to "God's People", I'm pretty sure if any of the conquest of Canaan, great flood, or judgement on Sodom and Gomorra was true a good deal of the reason for those things to happen would be that there would have been some fear instilled, and if you go back and read any of those narratives I promise it will jump out at you. For example, that the rainbow was supposedly given to calm fears of God acting like that again is no accident.

If by "the Lord" you mean to single out Yeshua and not YHWH, I'm pretty sure the whip that was used for the claimed clearing of the temple was to provoke fear, as were the parables of the Virgins, Rich Man and Lazarus, and many other teachings.

I agree with you, if Christians were more loving there's be less people leaving(but still probably more than you seem to think for other reasons), but the problem isn't just in the moral actions of many modern Christians: it is weaving all the way through the Bible as well. After you read the Bible, the only way to assume everything God is claimed to have done and said is out of love is to define Him as such, and that's exactly what people are not buying. The God portrayed in the Bible has serious issues that can't be explained away.

I will submit that if you want to have an impact on the world, the (American) Church needs to stop pretending the Bible is something it isn't, and figure out what that means for how they live life.. Only then can they be free to really love. There's always going to be a huge difference between the colonial "let's perform what we think are loving actions so we can be proven to be the good guys" and actions driven by a deep seated love directed towards the good of the other, and the things that do the most to keep American Christians from actual loving actions is the fact that it is still highly colonial and tribalistic.

The question is, do you really, honestly want to learn to love others as yourselves, or pretend to be better than others and use love as a mere weapon in the culture war? You can't do both. If it is your sincere goal to love others, you can do much worse than to read McLaren's latest book. Any or all of Richard Beck's books will help elucidate the why and the way forward for such a path.

If you are REALLY interested in learning about correlation, Daymon Smith is the expert.

He earned his PhD in Anthropology at the University of Pennsylvania in 2007 and wrote his dissertation on the rise of the modern, correlated church. Here's a link to his dissertation.

If you don't feel like reading through his 533 page magnum opus, he did a 9 part series on correlation back in 2010 at bycommonconsent.com which is based on material from his dissertation.

If you want something even more succinct, he did a Mormon Stories interview with John Dehlin in which he discussed his book, "The Book of Mammon: A Book About A Book About The Corporation That Owns The Mormons" and touches upon the rise of the modern church and correlation.

I don't mean the origin stories. I mean if you can discover a historical trace of the creation of the religion itself...i.e. the writing of the New Testament, in the case of Christianity, and the motivations that lead to said creation + the distribution of that religious text throughout the people. If you can demonstrate that the religion itself was intentionally fabricated for some reason, you can disprove it, or at the very least weaken it (I suppose it's always possible for a believer to claim that "God made him think that in order to distribute His gospel and test our faith!" or something).

There is at least one attempt at this that I know of, in a book called Caesar's Messiah: The Roman Conspiracy to Invent Jesus, but though I haven't read it, what I know about it seems to suggest that it is really just a theory right now, without strong enough evidence to prove it. Were there enough of a historical record to really prove the claims made in that book, though, I believe it would constitute "disproving" Christianity.

Here's a couple books you could start with your research. I know one is expensive, but it's a required book for some class so price is ridiculous. I found them at my library and also there are .pdf if you look.

Plato and the creation of the Hebrew Bible

Ceasar's Messiah

The Bible unearthed

Have fun, man.

Welcome to the sub and also welcome to the sometimes terrifying, sometimes hilarious, sometimes just downright perplexing field of apologetics and counter-apologetics. Skeptic vs Christian? Well, we're all looking for the truth, so hopefully you can learn a bit from each of us here and make up your own mind once you feel that you have enough perspective and enough of the relevant facts.

Here are my answers to your questions (trying to be brief!):

1) Is the bible inerrant?

By inerrant I take it to mean that you are referring to what most conservative Evangelical churches say about inerrancy. For a good grasp on what most churches in America mean when they put the word "inerrancy" into their written 'statement of belief' please read the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy.

In my understanding of inerrancy there are plenty of "loopholes" and one can always push back and say we simply don't have enough evidence or enough knowledge to say for certain that there is or is not a problem. I talk about this more on my blog (see: http://kch.me/no-contradictions-allowed/ ), but basically if you come at the text with the assumption that there are no errors (specifically no internal contradictions) then it will be very hard to admit that there are any in the text, even where another reader (someone who doesn't make such an assumption) would be quick to point some out.

Some basic contradictions often brought up are the differences between the two Creation stories in Genesis (slowly read Genesis 1, noting the order and how things occur, then slowly read and take notes on Genesis 2...scholars posit that the reason for this is that these two chapters originally came from separate documents and it is accounted for in the Documentary hypothesis)

Another basic, narrative-level contradiction (just simple differences between stories) is how the death of Judas is described. Did he die of hanging or of sudden disembowlement? Who purchased the field that he died in? Acts gives one account while the ending of Matthew gives another account. Again, I'd suggest reading both accounts one at a time, slowly, taken notice of the details mentioned in each version and the order in which events are said to occur.

Those may not be "deal-breakers" for accepting Christianity, but the moment that you can admit that there is even 1 error (whether because of an admitted contradiciton between two parts of the Bible or because of a falsehood identified in the Biblical text--saying a wrong historical data point or something based on primitive knowledge of biology or cosmology [stars are "fixed" in a round dome above earth, earth is flat etc]) then I think it is improper to continue to try and call the text inerrant.

2) Is the bible to be taken literally? This question obviously only refers to the New Testament. If the answer to this question is "yes", then how would one explain Mark 16:17-18?

That specific passage is actually pretty easy to dismiss since most modern translations now acknowledge that it most likely was not part of the original gospel. There's a whole long history about how it got into the text in the first place and why it is in the King James and some other older translations. If that sort of stuff interests you, I'd highly recommend checking out Misquoting Jesus, which describes how scholars determine the actual text of the Bible and specifically focuses on the New Testament (you can probably find a copy through local library).

Some passages of the Bible are clearly intended as allegories (such as most of the parables of Jesus and also some of the very obvious allegories within Ezekiel and other OT books). Still, other passages seem like they could not possibly be taken as allegories or metaphors such as the story of Jesus' baptism by John the Baptist which seems like it is intended to be understood as a straightforward historical account (though there are some differences between how some gospel writers, especially John, view this event). Other parts are more ambiguous. What exactly is the gospel of John getting at when it calls Jesus the "son of God"? How can such a strong theological point be understood from a historical perspective? Or, look at some of the events in the life of Jesus which seem to be over-loaded with symbolic meaning like when he feeds the multitudes (on two separate occassions)...does the fact that there is symbolic significance to these stories (repeating the actions of God feeding the Israelites in the wilderness as one example) mean that the authors recording these stories did not believe that they actually happened? IMO, there are definitely some gray areas throughout the Old and New Testaments when it comes to such tricky interpretive issues.

3) If the bible is not to be taken literally, instead if it is to be more of an allegory, then how am I supposed to know? How do I know when Jesus is talking to his disciples if he is really talking to me? Is Jesus ALWAYS talking to me in the bible? How does one differentiate?

The answers you will get on this question will vary wildly but they will pretty much be dependent upon what specific verse you are citing (or what set of parallel verses) and also upon the tradition of the person you are asking. I mentioned the parables earlier, and that's an area where most would at least agree that the parables aren't literal accounts of anything (maybe the parable of Lazarus can tell us something about heaven/hell, but it isn't clear). BUT, different Christian commentators would still disagree on the exact meaning and nuance of some of these stories. One that is more hotly debated is the parable of the sower...Arminians and Calvinists will hotly contest the understanding of this passage since it is seen to impact their debates over whether or not one can lose their salvation.

Another big area of disagreement when it comes to interpretation is the Sermon on the Mount. Those in the Anabaptist traditions (itself a pretty broad group but thinking mainly of Mennonites and Amish here) see Jesus' radical commands here quite literally...some Christians will not swear oaths, even in a court of law, because of what Jesus says here. Mennonites and other pacifist Christians refuse to serve in the military or the police and even consider personal self-defense sinful because it would violate Jesus' command to "turn the other cheek." Other groups though will down-play the significance of what Jesus is saying here or they will insist that nothing Jesus said is relevant because he was speaking to the 1st century Jews before his death and this was a different "dispensation" and in fact the specific commands which Christians are required to follow are all found in Paul's later epistles ( see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperdispensationalism )...this view and similar theologies would also say that we can't look to certain parts of Scripture to give us an example of how the church should behave, since God had not yet fully revealed his plan for the church. This stuff can get tricky real quick and like I say a lot depends upon the tradition that is used to filter the text. I think that some of the NT writers disagreed with each other and now that they are all part of one unified canon different methods have been proposed which try to harmonize all of the diverse teachings and make sense of them together, which is (part of) why there are so many diverse Christian denominations each claiming to have the truth and yet each pointing to one authoritative Scripture.

4) How many gods do you believe in? Is Jesus a god? Is his heavenly father a god? Are they the same person? Is the Holy Ghost a god? How does this relate to your views on the Trinity?

I don't believe in any gods. I'm an atheist. On some gods I simply don't know enough either way to judge the claim while for certain specific deities I assert that the existence of such a being is either downright impossible (due to logical absurdities or historical flaws) or is extremely implausible and extremely unlikely based upon knowledge we now have.

I will say that I think it is possible to be a fulfilled, devout Christian without buying into everything that modern fundamentalism teaches (namely an "inerrant" Bible, eternal conscious torment for the wicked and a very specific formula for "how to be saved and go to heaven").

I wish you well on your journey and hope that you find satisfactory answers to your questions. Peace and Freedom :)

EDIT: I'm noticing that some atheists here are recommending the Skeptics Annotated Bible. Please don't waste your time with that website...you are going to find that the SAB is rather ahem uncharitable when it comes to presenting what it sees as contradictions or problems.

Augustine's Confessions is pretty good, and relatively short.

The Early Church by Henry Chadwick is decent, shortish and pretty readable.

It was a very specific religion for a very specific region of the world and cultures there (my take). It spread and the rationale behind had had to change as well. If you are interested, read "The Darkening Age" by Catherine Nixey. It's a fantastic read on the steps the early Christians went to when trying to destroy the older religions. So much was lost and there are so many lies about what actually happened.

https://www.amazon.com/Darkening-Age-Christian-Destruction-Classical/dp/0544800885/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=the+darkening+age&qid=1566505399&s=gateway&sr=8-1

If anyone is interested in reading into this, I’d recommend this book:

https://www.amazon.com/Darkening-Age-Christian-Destruction-Classical/dp/0544800885

It’s all about how Christianity destroyed Ancient Rome and conquered Europe, it’s a great read.

Have you read this yet?

The King James Only Controversy: Can You Trust Modern Translations? https://www.amazon.com/dp/0764206052/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_mqhQAbT2WADJA

For the Life of the World: Sacraments and Orthodoxy, by Fr. Alexander Schmemann.

Excellent! I read Caesar's Messiah: The Roman Conspiracy to Invent Jesus by Joseph Atwill a couple of years ago mostly for shits and giggles, and since I don't know much about the Bible I couldn't tell how true it was - but it made a lot more sense than any Christian explanation and it doesn't invoke the supernatural. I know Richard Carrier wrote about it saying it didn't make sense, but I haven't heard much other discussion.

​

So I have two questions.

1. Is there any merit to the book at all? I tried asking the atheist communities at the time and nobody thought it was worth more than a slice of pizza.
   
   
2. Are there better secular explanations as to who wrote the Bible and...most importantly, why? What's the leading reason?

If you want a good read that critiques the Chicago Statement check out The Human Faces of God by Thom Stark

we switch books each year... (BoM, PoGP, D&C, NT) we skip the OT cause last time we tried (when i was still TBM) I told my wife that most of the stuff we were reading was disturbing, so we crossed off that book of madness. And frankly after reading

https://www.amazon.com/Misquoting-Jesus-Story-Behind-Changed-ebook/dp/B000SEGJF8/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1503676427&sr=8-1&keywords=misquoting+jesus

I really don't want anything to do with the Bible either.

My new bible is this, I have it on my nightstand and read it daily and HIGHLY recommend it to anyone still looking for daily insight to living a good life.

https://www.amazon.com/Daily-Stoic-Meditations-Wisdom-Perseverance-ebook/dp/B01HNJIJB2/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1503676497&sr=8-1&keywords=daily+stoic

My moms rationalization is that Jesus was killed by Jews and the holocaust is gods retribution. I was horrified in high school to learn that that line of thinking was actual nazi propaganda.
As an adult I read a book called Zealot which asserts that the Romans are actually to blame for crucifying Jesus but they found a way to blame the Jews because the Bible was intended for a Roman audience. To me, it makes it that much worse that the racist propaganda was based on a lie.

Those guys are horrible at history. I would recommend going to /r/badhistory for rebuttals, in the meantime I found some books that I think can really help out debunking this myth.

Science and Religion: A Historical Introduction

Philosophy of Science: An Historical Anthology

Galileo Goes to Jail and Other Myths about Science and Religion

When Science and Christianity Meet

The Genesis of Science: How the Christian Middle Ages Launched the Scientific Revolution

The Beginnings of Western Science: The European Scientific Tradition in Philosophical, Religious, and Institutional Context, Prehistory to A.D. 1450

The Savior of Science

For the Glory of God

The Bible, Protestantism, and the Rise of Natural Science

The History of Science from Augustine to Galileo

Yes this is a long list but that's because it's studied so often ;). I hope this helps.

With the possible exception of Luke, none of the books of Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John which constitute the majority of the new testament were actually written directly by the disciples whose name they bear. Instead, they are based on the viewpoints of those disciples and what they would've likely said about the events they depict.

Source: this book

What the hell are you talking about? There literally was a huge circle-jerk over a book that gave massive evidence to the existence and life of a man referred to as Jesus.

http://www.amazon.com/kindle-store/dp/B00BRUQ7ZY

These are some of the better books I've accumulated in school:

• An Introduction to the New Testament - Raymond Brown. Exactly what the title says.
  
  
• The Early Church - Henry Chadwick. This is more of a historical overview of the development of the Church, etc.
  
  
• The Shape of Catholic Theology - Aiden Nichols. This book is kind of a dense read. Not gonna lie.
  
  
• At the Origin of the Christian Claim - Luigi Giussani.
  
  
• The Craft of Theology - Avery Dulles.
  
  
• The Theology of the Church - Charles Jornet. - This one is about ecclesiology, or the structure of the Church.
  
  
• Early Christian Fathers -Cyril Richardson. Includes primary sources like letters and homilies.
  
  
• The Trinitarian Crontroversy - William Rusch. Very good history of early heresies, like Arianism and Nestorianism, and how they pushed the Church to develop the Creed.
  
  
• Called to Communion - Joseph Ratzinger.
  
  
• Catholicism: Christ and the Common Destiny of Man - Henri de Lubac. This book is fantastic!
  
  
• The Meaning of Tradition - Yves Congar.
  
  
• Introduction to Moral Theology - Romanus Cessario.
  
  
• The Major Works -Anselm of Canterbury. Nice collection, see especially: Cur Deus Homo.
  
  
• On the Incarnation - Ignatius of Antioch. I LOVED this one!
  
  
• Credo for Today - Joseph Ratzinger. Basically anything by Ratzinger.

The King James Only Controversy by James White is a great go to book to get into KJVism vs modern translations. The author also has a lot of other material on textual criticism. Look him up at AOMin.org to track down more resources on this.

Dr White's opinion (from what I understand from his podcast) is that modern critical texts are superior to Erasmus' critical edition (that was marketed as the Textus Receptus) and that pastors should work as heavily as possible with the original language. The translation a pastor uses should be a decent, non-liberal translation that works for him and his congregation, with the pastor able to go back to the original language.

For my own position, I agree with White that the modern critical text is better than Erasmus' critical text, and that the ESV is the best translation.

John Dominic Crossan wrote a book on the historical Jesus, which was published in a scholarly edition and a shorter edition for a more general audience. I know a few recent PhDs and advanced PhD students in Biblical Studies that tell me he is respected in the field.

Just in case you're interested in a more reliable source.

EDIT: here's the shorter version on amazon

Naked Economics - conforme /u/jpjandrade recomendou (a Economia Nua e Crua em PT-BR) é sensacional, o tipo de livro que dá vontade de comprar 10 para dar de presente.

Outro um pouco mais avançado é Basic Economics: A Common Sense Guide to the Economy, o qual creio não ter edição em PTBR ainda.

De história vai depender muito do seu gosto... os de economia são simples de escolher pois o básico da economia é o seu próprio núcleo... história é muito ampla...

Eu adoro história e devo ter uns 50 livros, sendo uns 20 sobre episódios específicos da Segunda Guerra. Recomendo os seguintes livros como sendo bons mesmo pra quem nunca leu nada a respeito (creio que todos os abaixos existam em PTBR, caso não leia em Inglês):

The Crusades: The Authoritative History of the War for the Holy Land;

Black Hawk Down: A Story of Modern War - Se gostou do filme, o livro é sensacional - totalmente baseado nos relatos das unidades presentes em combate;

Stalingrad: The Fateful Siege: 1942-1943 - este livro é sensacional, se já ouviu alguma vez sobre a batalha de Stalingrado a leitura é obrigatória;

Por fim, caso goste de ciência (física e química especificamente) e de história militar, este foi o livro que mostrou pra mim que a ciência caminha de forma fantástica, e que muitas (se não todas) as explicações de descobertas são superhypermega simplificadas: The Making of the Atomic Bomb.

says otherwise.

it was a papal response to the byzantine plea for assistance.
great read if you have the time.

• The Nag Hammadi Scriptures: The Revised and Updated Translation of Sacred Gnostic Texts Complete in One Volume
  
• The Complete Dead Sea Scrolls in English: Seventh Edition

If you only read one book on the subject it should be Robert Grant's Augustus to Constantine. It's a tremendous piece of scholarship, in-depth without being overwhelming or boring, and Grant does an excellent job of situating the rise of Christianity against the background of the larger Roman Empire.

Other suggestions:
Henry Chadwick's The Early Church is a classic survey, but it's a bit dated now. Still a very accessible introduction, cheaper and shorter than the Grant.

Peter Brown is, in my opinion, one of the greatest historians who's ever lived and he has written extensively on Late Antique Christianity. For this specific topic, I'd suggest The World of Late Antiquity or The Rise of Western Christendom: Triumph and Diversity. The advantage of Brown is that he's also a fantastic writer.

Another interesting source is Robert Louis Wilken's *Christians as the Romans Saw Them. While it won't give you a full survey of Christianity's rise, it provides the perspective of pagan thinkers reacting to the strange, barbarous, troubling religion that is Christianity. This one is more of a supplement to the other listed works, but I think it helps really understand Christianity against the religio-cultural background of the Roman Empire.

Finally, the great primary source on the subject is Eusebius's *History of the Church. Obviously Eusebius, the 4th century bishop, doesn't match up to modern standards of historical accuracy, but you still get a comprehensive picture of the rise of Christianity that's pretty darn fun to read. Read with a critical eye, it's a terrific source. Also, it's available for free online. (also Eusebius basically invented documentary history, so that's kinda neat)

If you want more recommendations, or want more specific suggestions, I'd be glad to help out. My strongest recommendation are the Grant and the Brown.

Just gonna throw this out there - most of me and my wife's shelf breakers came from books or film that wouldn't traditionally be seen as related to mormonism. Our brains were just too wired to sniff that stuff out and reject it even if engaging with it. Instead I'd recommend two of the most powerful books I ever read and obiliterated my testimony without so much as a mention of Mormon history:

The Greatest Show On Earth by Richard Dawkins - Dawkins has a bit of a reputation as a vocal Atheist so your wife may already be biased. But if not - he is a wonderful writer, capable of relaying complex scientific principles in easy-to-understand layman's terms. So clear and levelheaded, it's essentially impossible to read this book and not have a minor stroke from the cognitive dissonance it throws on every concept of a divine creator that's ever existed.

Varieties of Scientific Experience by Carl Sagan - Carl Sagan was the original 'make science cool and accessible' superstar and in my mind he still hasn't been topped. This book is a supremely entertaining, mind expanding and FAIR mediation on science and belief from one of our generations greatest thinkers.

Hope this helps (cause reading mormon history books if she isn't ready sure as hell won't)

There is a set of books by Jeroslav Pelican that I have enjoyed. They go over church history, but also traces how certain doctrines. You can find the first volume here:

https://www.amazon.com/Christian-Tradition-Development-Doctrine-Emergence/dp/0226653714

Unfortunately on this topic, all books will have some bias. The trick IMO is to read each book with this in mind.

EDIT: I also just remembered the book by J.N.D. Kelly "Early Christian Doctrines".

You and u/Keln78 might really like this book by David Bentley Hart. It's red-pilling about the supreme influence of Christ's teachings reshaping civilization as we know it.

Try not to judge the book by its awful title. It was changed by the publisher to try and compete with "The God Delusion." The book isn't anywhere near as arrogant as the title makes it seem.

You need to read The Darkening Age: The Christian Destruction of the Classical World.

"But it's the blessing of a friendship, adelphopoiesis, as described in Boswell (https://www.amazon.com/Same-Sex-Unions-Premodern-Europe-Boswell/dp/0679751645)."

Here is some stuff from James White: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UNGa_dRTNMo. There are several videos here that are very insightful.

Also, a book he wrote: http://www.amazon.com/The-King-James-Only-Controversy/dp/0764206052

I'd argue that KJV-onlyism borders on heresy b/c it starts putting extra rules and requirements on the Gospel, and it misconstrues how the veracity of the Gospel has been preserved. Additionally, it is incredibly Anglo-centric and starts posing really big problems for non-English speakers.

I attend a Reformed Baptist church (1689 myself, church has a Master's Grad teaching pastor/elder), and we have several of the IB churches/groups around us. These people tend to be far dogmatic about KJV-onlyism than they are about the Gospel, which breaks my heart, and tend to be confrontational to the fact that the teaching elder uses the Elect Standard Version from the pulpit (hurr hurr there ESV).

Also, this coming from a person who does his daily bible reading partially in KJV daily, and it is my preferred reading version.

Note: I have also noticed these IB folks generally do not hold to unconditional election either.

For your husband's dad, what about some interesting spices or condiments he can cook with? I know Penzey's has some good gift sets, or you could do something like flavored olive oils paired with a new spatula/other cooking tool.

If your dad likes religious history, I've heard good things about Zealot (haven't read it myself though).

So, first, and I realize this isn't exactly comforting, but there will be a freak out time no matter what. There will be some time where you feel like the world is ending, and no matter what you do, it will still feel that way. It was that way for me (though we aren't the same, so maybe your experience will differ): every night, up late, praying and sweating and crying. Is there someone in the real world you can talk to? Having a meat body to grab onto for comfort is huge. Also, I wish I'd known about Reddit (not sure if it existed yet) when I went through my biz. This subreddit would have been amazing.

Ironically, part of what pushed me out of Christianity was learning more about it: being really on fire for it. When you learn church history from the church, it's very skewed and specialized, but when you step out of that and examine it from an objective historical point of view, things get crazy. And more calming.

In case you missed it elsewhere in this thread, John Shelby Spong was very comforting for me.

I think A History of God gets mentioned on this sub at least once a day. It's not an easy read, but immensely illuminating as it shows that, essentially, the guy we call god with a capital G is really just a lesser Canaanite deity worshiped by an insane shepherd. But because of Abraham's weird life, all of western history plays out.

It's been awhile since I read Jesus Interrupted, but if I remember correctly, it's about how what the historical Jesus probably said (because we can't possibly know) has been manipulated by history to satisfy different political goals.

Zealot tries to recreate to the best of the author's ability Jesus' world, the philosophies he grew up with, and the philosophies he most likely would have taught. Some parts of this read like an amazing novel, and it has some crazy historical stuff. It really blew my mind.

I read Pagan Christianity right at the start of my dark night. I've mentioned it before, and it confirmed a lot of my suspicions about Christianity actually being fancied up paganism (Zealot discusses that a little as well). It's written from very much a contemporary Christian perspective, so it has some errors that drive me nuts: i.e. Jesus almost certainly wouldn't have ever meant he and god were literally the same, because no half-serious Jewish person of any era would assert that.

It's stupid late where I am (and my toddler already makes sure I'm constantly sleep deprived), so the last thing I'll leave you with:

When I was going through my "dark night of the soul," I still considered myself Christian afterward for quite awhile. It's just that the kind of Christian I felt I had become was so radically different from what I had been that it warranted night sweats and crying. Since then, each progressive deconversion has been less and less painful by magnitudes. But while I was going through it, I kept thinking about a quote in some book I'd read about how, "God made you with the brain you have, the talents you have, the interests you have, and the curiosity you have: pursue that and glorify god." I reasoned (and I feel this is pretty solid) that if god were real, he'd have to be so outside our everyday experience that no one is getting it right; because if he weren't that alien to us, if he was even slightly comprehensible, he couldn't be god. And if god were real, he'd (it?) know how incomprehensible he is, and unless he were insane or evil, he couldn't possibly be just in punishing us for doing whatever we thought was best and in good conscience. The process was still painful, but it definitely made me feel better about ripping off that hairy band-aid.

If you don't already, I'd recommend writing as you go through all this. If you can stomach it, put it some place public, like a blog, so people can bear witness.

Dammit. I said I was going to bed 20 minutes ago.

Sorry-but-not-sorry for the wall of text.

For the Life of the World, by Alexander Schmemann

Inspiration and Incarnation: Evangelicals and the Problem of the Old Testament by Peter Enns addresses some of these issues and is oriented toward Evangelicals who have tried to build their faith on biblical inerrancy and literalism.

I also highly recommend The Human Faces of God by Thom Stark. Roughly half the book deals with the problems of biblical inerrancy, and half with the violence and cruelty of the Old Testament. It is ruthlessly honest in its approach to the Bible, something that I've never seen in apologetics or pro-inerrancy material.

u/SwordOfRighteousness touched on this already, but just to drive the point home...There are layers to what you do or do not believe. The top layer is JW doctrine. The second layer is the Bible. The third, foundation layer, is the belief in Jehovah God (or theism, at the very least). You can remove your belief in the top layer, the JW doctrines, and still have belief in the Bible and Jehovah. But if you remove your belief in the Bible itself then you can not retain belief in JW doctrine. So I would suggest starting there. Prove to yourself what the Bible is. How would you do this?

​

To start, I can not recommend highly enough the free online Yale Bible course: Yale Bible Course

​

This is a level of critical Bible study most witnesses are completely unaware even exists. It's not anti-Bible, setting out to disparage it. It simply deconstructs what we know, and what we don't know, about the origins of the Bible itself. Start with the OT course, it's fantastic. And then, read. Read like your life depends on it because, in a way, it does. At least, what kind of life you have depends on it. Books that really helped me:

​

Who Wrote the Bible

The Bible Unearthed

Jesus, Interrupted

​

These aren't some flat-earth type nut jobs spewing non-sense. They are well respected Biblical scholars who have devoted their lives to the Bible. Personally, they destroyed my second layer of belief, and made my views on the top layer almost irrelevant.

Mormon Disclosures is honestly pretty reliable. It should be noted that it's normal for apostles to be provided with living space, expenses, and cars, so while I'm not sure whether transfer of property is itself normal I wouldn't be surprised. Obviously other churches provide similarly for their leadership, so I don't see any reason to be skeptical. The church's finances are murky and pretty damn hidden though. I'd recommend checking out this book if you're interested in these things: http://www.amazon.com/The-Book-Mammon-Corporation-Mormons/dp/1451553706

I assume you're exmormon since I've seen you post on /r/exmormon, so am I. If you can't afford that book, but are interested I can PM you a link.

Daymon Smith is the best you will find, especially if your friend is the brainy type. This series of interviews is long but worth the effort. Also, if your friend is patient, I would recommend they listen to the whole Mormon Stories interview with Daymon, episodes 149–52. Even though these interviews are six years old, they are still the best in-depth commentary on correlation. Daymon's writings, including Book of Mammon, were instrumental in my throwing the TSCC out of my life.

You might also recommend the chapter on correlation in Greg Prince's book, David O. McKay and the Rise of Modern Mormonism.

edit: Your friend may also be interested to know that these two sources—Daymon Smith and Greg Prince—approach the topic of correlation from a faithful yet analytical perspective. For another faithful/analytical perspective, I'd recommend reading Matt Bowman's chapter on correlation in this book, or this essay. PM me if you want pdfs of the chapters by Bowman and Prince.

> Outlining his ideas in a blog posting on his website Mr Atwill writes: "Christianity may be considered a religion, but it was actually developed and used as a system of mind control to produce slaves that believed God decreed their slavery."

> Mr Atwill says that acts of insurrection by Jewish sects, who were awaiting the arrival of a so-called 'warrior Messiah' in Palestine, were a perpetual problem for the Roman Empire and that after the Empire had exhausted all traditional means of dealing with the problem they resorted to psychological warfare.

> "They surmised that the way to stop the spread of zealous Jewish missionary activity was to create a competing belief system," Atwill told PRWeb.com

> "That's when the 'peaceful' Messiah story was invented.

While Atwill does not get recognized or responded to by the Christian movements, he does put forth some strong points

https://www.amazon.com/Caesars-Messiah-Conspiracy-Flavian-Signature/dp/1461096405

No, there is no record whatsoever of the Jewish people being enslaved in Egypt an no archaeological evidence of 2 million+ people wandering in the deserts of the Sinai peninsula for 40 years. Which isn't to say it didn't happen, only that we have no evidence for such events.

The ancient Israelites didn't settle in Canaan from elsewhere, there is nothing in the historical/archaeological record to suggest they were anything but Canaanites themselves. One theory is that they were tribal-hill country folk who thrived after the collapse of the economy surrounding the ancient city states.


source: Bible Unearthed, Biblical History and Israel's Past

The most apt description I've seen for how to understand the bible is to read it as political propaganda. A huge component of their religion was to separate themselves from other cultures, so it makes sense that their foundation myths would include coming from elsewhere. And having God himself promise you the land doesn't hurt your claims, either.

I've been exactly where you are. I went through years of struggle, questioning, hiding from my doubts, and questioning some more. Finally, I decided to face the possibility that perhaps everything I knew wasn't true. I started out by reading through the Bible with a truly open mind after praying, "God, I'm not sure if you're real. I'm going to read through your word one more time here. Please help me understand it the way you intended for it to be understood."

By the time I got through Judges, I realized I was no longer religious in any way. I could no longer believe something so unbelievable.

I then spent months reading, researching, and learning things I didn't even know were possible. My favorite was learning about the origins of the Bible: Check out The Bible Unearthed and Who Wrote the Bible if you're interested. And the science of evolution - something I'd never allowed myself to learn about in the past, for fear of weakening my already weak faith - is mindblowing!

The struggle you're going through is terrifying, but you will get through it - on one side or the other. For me, the result was the realization that everything I'd been taught from childhood was not true. It stunned me to see how truly ignorant I had been of the truth, history, science, morality, etc.

Good luck to you!

First of all, can I just say how much I love giving and receiving book recommendations? I was a religious studies major in college (and was even a T.A. in the World Religions class) so, this is right up my alley. So, I'm just going to take a seat in front of my book cases...

General:

1. A History of God by Karen Armstrong
   
   
2. The Great Transformation by Karen Armstrong
   
   
3. Myths: gods, heroes, and saviors by Leonard Biallas (highly recommended)
   
   
4. Natural History of Religion by David Hume
   
   
5. Beyond Tolerance by Gustav Niebuhr
   
   
6. Acts of Faith by Eboo Patel (very highly recommended, completely shaped my view on pluralism and interfaith dialogue)
   
   
7. The Evolution of God by Robert Wright
   
   Christianity:
   
   
8. Tales of the End by David L. Barr
   
   
9. The Historical Jesus by John Dominic Crossan
   
   
10. Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography by John Dominic Crossan
    
    
11. The Birth of Christianity by John Dominic Crossan
    
    
12. Who Wrote the New Testament? by Burton Mack
    
    
13. Jesus in America by Richard Wightman Fox
    
    
14. The Five Gospels by Robert Funk, Roy W. Hoover, and the Jesus Seminar (highly recommended)
    
    
15. Remedial Christianity by Paul Alan Laughlin
    
    Judaism:
    
    
16. The Jewish Mystical Tradition by Ben Zion Bokser
    
    
17. Who Wrote the Bible? by Richard Elliot Friedman
    
    Islam:
    
    
18. Muhammad by Karen Armstrong
    
    
19. No God but God by Reza Aslan
    
    
20. Approaching the Qur'an: The Early Revelations by Michael Sells
    
    Buddhism:
    
    
21. Buddha by Karen Armstrong
    
    
22. Entering the Stream ed. Samuel Bercholz & Sherab Chodzin Kohn
    
    
23. The Life of Milarepa translated by Lobsang P. Lhalungpa
    
    
24. Introduction to Tibetan Buddhism by John Powers
    
    
25. Zen Flesh, Zen Bones compiled by Paul Reps (a classic in Western approached to Buddhism)
    
    
26. Buddhist Thought by Paul Williams (if you're at all interested in Buddhist doctrine and philosophy, you would be doing yourself a disservice by not reading this book)
    
    Taoism:
    
    
27. The Essential Chuang Tzu trans. by Sam Hamill & J.P. Seaton
    
    Atheism:
    
    
28. Atheism by Julian Baggini
    
    
29. The Future of an Illusion by Sigmund Freud
    
    
30. Doubt: A History by Jennifer Michael Hecht
    
    
31. When Atheism Becomes Religion by Chris Hedges
    
    
32. Atheism: The Case Against God by George H. Smith

Recommended Reading:

• The Crusades: The Authoritative History of the War for the Holy Land
  
  
• The First Crusade: A New History: The Roots of Conflict between Christianity and Islam
  
  
• The New Concise History of the Crusades: Critical Issues in World and International History
  
  
• God's Battalions: The Case for the Crusades

I honestly don't know what the longest book I've ever read has been. Some of the Harry Potter's were fairly long IIRC but it's been years. The Count of Monte Cristo was the longest I've read recently

The Crusades by Thomas Asbridge was decent-sized but I blew through it fairly quickly. Fantastic read

https://www.amazon.com/Nag-Hammadi-Scriptures-Translation-Complete/dp/0061626007/ref=nodl_

Hello u/polythemepam9, it appears you tried to put a link in a title, since most users cant click these I have placed it here for you

^I ^am ^a ^bot ^if ^you ^have ^any ^suggestions ^dm ^me

as a good roman catholic i must tell you to stop delving into heresy immediately

as someone who loves reading gnostic texts, the gospel of phillip is pretty interesting as a valentinian catechesis

and the regular gospel of thomas is interesting in more ways than one, though it's a sayings gospel

also if you ever have spare cash, this collection is pretty nice, and not too steep either

Generally histories:

Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years

Chadwick - The Early Church

Retrieving Nicaea

Specific Important Authors

Apostolic Fathers

Origen Note: Not everything he said is orthodox, but he was an extremely important figure.

Desert Fathers

Athanasius - On the Incarnation

Basil - On the Holy Spirit

Gregory of Nazianzus

John Chrysostom

Augustine - Confessions

Rule of St. Benedict

Gregory the Great

Maximus the Confessor

John Damascus

The Varieties of Scientific Experience: A Personal View of the Search for God

Start with Eusebius. After that, Jaroslav Pelikan's multi-volume set will keep you busy for a good while.

It is an oversimplification. Keep /u/cephalopodie's caveat in mind, but we do have references to sexual dynamics that we could consider precursors to LGBTQI folks. I would point you in the way of John Boswell's work on same-sex unions in Pre-Modern Europe. Boswell points to some extant textual references of the Catholic church performing same-sex unions. The key term here is some. See also this work. Here is some more up to date takes on the thesis. Keep in mind, I have not read this one. I would also invite you to take a look at Virginia Burrus' work.

Christianity wasn't legalized until 313 C.E. and it didn't become the State Religion until 380 C.E. we can reasonably declare 380 C.E. as the beginning of the Catholic church. Before 313 Christians were persecuted throughout the empire. Also, did you even read the second link?

>
>
>Preface
>
>The Short answer is no: Tacitus is not the only or main reason why modern historians (whether Atheist, Agnostic, or Christian) believe the historical Jesus existed. I am going to copy and paste my answer from a previous post and also suggest that if you want in depth answers into what evidence we have for the Historical Jesus to read one of these two books:
>
>Ehrman, Bart: Did Jesus Exist?: The Historical Argument for Jesus of Nazareth
>
>Crossan, John Dominic: The Historical Jesus: The Life of a Mediterranean Jewish Peasant Ehrman is a very vocal Agnostic (borderline Atheist) and Crossan is a Christian, just to give you both sides of the coin. I recommend Ehrman because he's one of the most engaging historians on this topic, period.
>
>Why do historians overwhelmingly agree that Jesus was historically a real person?
>
>First, we need to address one key issue that most people don't understand, so people on both sides of this argument like to take certain things out of context. It needs to be known that we have practically no primary sources for many secondary (non-monarchs or major political figures) characters in antiquity. This is what the historical Jesus was (a secondary character in his day). If we simply say "we have no archeological evidence, so he doesn't exist" then we need to say that Aristotle and Socrates did not exist because, like Jesus' story, we are left with written accounts that have been repeatedly copied through various generations.
>
>Now when it comes to the historical Jesus (and what we know of him) well it's simple in a few ways. The first, is that although the gospels and other New Testament books were all written decades after Jesus died (however Paul started writing between 45-49 CE), they are independently attested. Yes, from a historical perspective (and personally for myself since I am agnostic) the miracles and resurrection are considered embellishments to help encourage early people convert to this new Jewish sect.
>
>What does this mean
>
>Now although much of this information cannot be relied upon for historical purposes, some of it can pass the test of historical plausibility. What do I mean by that? Well, every historian, when examining evidence, has a set of criteria they must use when comparing written accounts of any event. Part of doing this, is taking these four accounts, and cross examining with each other and seeing if any of the minor details (things that lack religious implications that would be less likely for people to make up) correspond to most or all of the documents. What you'll find is that many of these minor details correspond consistently in ways that you wouldn't expect-- this is something you almost never see with mythical figures.
>
>You'll also see that the early Gospel writers likely had to create explanations for certain things about Jesus because his name was likely somewhat known around the time of his death. I'll give a brief example:
>
>Two of the gospels deal with the birth of Jesus. Without going into too much detail, it's easy to make the argument that both Matthew and Luke did not get their information for this narrative from the same source. They are constantly at odds with each other over many specific areas of this story (example: in Matthew, Mary and Joseph already lived in bethlehem and then had to move to Egypt and then, years later, move to Nazareth. In Luke, Mary and Joseph lived in Nazareth, traveled to Bethlehem for a theoretical tax registration, waited there for 32 days after Jesus was born, and then returned immediately to Nazareth).
>
>Most historians believe it is likely that both of them made up nearly all (if not all) of the parts to their stories because they were trying to fulfill the prophecies from the Old Testament. See, in the book of Micah, it was predicted that a savior would be born in the city of David (Bethlehem), so these writers wanted to make sure that Jesus fulfilled this prophecy. But wait, they had a real issue to deal with. It was probably well-known that Jesus was from some small town called Nazareth, thus he didn't fulfill that part of the prophecy. So, to deal with this, early gospel writers created these narratives to explain how this person from Nazareth could have still been from the city of David.
>
>If Jesus was a mythological figure that sprung up out of thin air, there would be no reason to say he was from Nazareth, they would have said he was from Bethlehem and just left it at that. This is what we typically see for made up figures. Keep in mind that this is one of dozens of examples where the writers did this to meet personal agendas of their time.
>
>What historians also find is that it is nearly impossible for a sect or cult to immediately spring up without a founding figure. After Jesus' death, the remaining followers were probably a group of people of about 20-30 people, and it expanded rather quickly -- probably hitting the hundreds within the decade after his death and by 50 CE, they had spread throughout the Roman Empire. Most scholars believe that the book of Mark, written between 65-70 CE, was actually written in the city of Rome for a local church there. This type of growth and expansion is, by historical standards, incredibly fast. The rapid rate of growth suggests, for historians, that a real figure of Jesus existed, had a few followers who immediately disbanded after his death. Yet, for those whom remained, they started preaching about his life and resurrection, which was likely very enticing for their day.
>
>I hope this gave you a glimpse into the answer for this. If you'd like more examples I can provide them.
>
>Addendum I wanted to add one more thing that I forgot to mention in my original post, and it's something that I find to be extremely important but is often overlooked. Tacitus is often identified as the first Roman to discuss or mention the historical Jesus or his followers which is actually not correct. The first mention of Christians actually comes several years earlier, around the year 112 CE (although I've read one scholar claim it was maybe even during the decade before that) by a Roman governor. Here's an excerpt from another Ehrman book on the topic:
>
>"The author, Pliny the Younger, was a governor of a Roman province. In a letter that he wrote to his emperor, Trajan, he indicates that there was a group of people called Christians who were meeting illegally; he wants to know how to handle the situation. These people, he tells the emperor, “worship Christ as a God.” That’s all he says about Jesus. It’s not much to go on if you want to know anything about the historical Jesus." -- Ehrman, Bart D Jesus, Interrupted: Revealing the Hidden Contradictions in the Bible (And Why We Don't Know About Them) HarperCollins. (2009-02-20) pp. 149
>
>As Ehrman points out, it's not much to go off of, but it is important that we have multiply attested sources talking about the rapidly growing Christian base at this time.

If you are looking for a good survey of the Crusades, focusing primarily on the events thereof, I would highly recommend The Crusades by Thomas Asbridge. Not only is the book inexpensive and will give you a broad and relatively balanced overview (at least insofar as that is possible from only reading one book), but Asbridge is a leading scholar in the field and the book itself is quite readable as scholarly non-fiction goes.

Edit: this is essentially what I said when I recommended it to the book list, but unhelpfully there are two "middle ages" lists and the book on crusading was on the other list.

Did you mean Henry Chadwick? If that's the case, I second that one. I picked up the book on Amazon a few years back, and it was informative and very readable.

Indeed. Such a person, however, would likely be unfamiliar with biblical textual criticism, the history of homosexuality in the Roman empire at the time of Christ, the history of homosexuality within the Christian tradition, the history of the interpretation of these scriptures, and unfamiliar with psychological literature that almost unanimously shows that people who live repressing same-sex attraction are nearly universally miserable.


Here's a to read list:
http://www.amazon.com/Misquoting-Jesus-Story-Behind-Changed/dp/0060859512/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1420072538&sr=8-1&keywords=misquoting+jesus


http://www.amazon.com/Christianity-Social-Tolerance-Homosexuality-Fourteenth/dp/0226067114/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1420072525&sr=8-3&keywords=john+boswell


http://www.amazon.com/Same-Sex-Unions-Premodern-Europe-Boswell/dp/0679751645/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1420072525&sr=8-1&keywords=john+boswell

I can assure you, as an ex Catholic, the Orthodox church is not just conservative. Our practices and liturgy have evolved and will keep doing it. But holding to the traditions doesn't limit us, it enriches us. My priest once stood up and gave a homily that I will paraphrase badly. He said the Church exists for the people and their salvation. The rules and traditions exist because these are the things that have been found over the centuries to work. Again. They help us achieve salvation. Then he said that yes, it's possible to strike out on your own or go find God on the mountain top, but most of us need a lot more help than that. So if the rules are getting in the way of your relationship with God, don't follow them. But if you're ignoring the rules because you think you can do it better, try taking them on. Because the evidence shows that they work.

You're not going to be able to understand Orthodoxy by reading, you'll have to come and visit and absorb it. But you should check out the book For the Life of the World. From what you've written here I think you would appreciate it.

http://www.amazon.com/The-Book-Mammon-Corporation-Mormons/dp/1451553706

Jaded Comments
----

>> next unto it is to say something disparaging about Sherry Dew (i wont go into that one, apart from saying that I may have called her a haggish old woman),

I find it funny, that the role model for women in the church is a never married CEO.

>> As time went on, because my employment was directly tied to my beliefs I spent many painful nights trying to get myself to believe

This is my theory on apologists.

>>I have never felt more at peace, happy and self confident as I do now that I have left the church behind me.

Congratulations! I'm happy for you.

----

Questions
----

1. Have you read this?
   
   
2. Do you have moderately relevant numbers on activity, tithing, expenditures, any of their internal studies, corporate expenses / losses, or other information long kept hidden from the public?
   
   
3. What were your "Wow, you're kidding me. This happens in the Lord's church!" moments.
   
   
4. How many of your coworkers do you think have completely drunk the kool-aid vs just want to keep their job?
   
   
5. How are women regarded by the COB?
   
   
6. How many missionaries did you see take the jobs of FTEs, or FTEs reduced to contractor status to keep their jobs?
   
   
7. Were there any pleasant moments working for the COB?

It was a long series for me. I thank Christian apologists and theologians for teaching me the value of evidence, reason and logic. Seriously.

1. Started learning apologetics and theology as a hobby and to better "give a defense of the faith".
   
2. Learned about the importance of only believing things supported by evidence, reason and logic... but only applied them within Christianity. For example, I could see why Arminianism was wrong according to a Calvinistic worldview, but it never occurred to me to question Christianity itself until later.
   
3. Learned about skepticism and how to question everything. This lead to me giving up a lot of other bullshit beliefs and refusing to accept any extraordinary claims without good evidence... but it still never occurred to me to apply it to Christianity.
   
4. Between 2. and 3. I was wrestling with the fact that the best scientists in the world, for a long time now, have insisted that all the evidence points to an old earth and evolution as the origin of species. I tried to reason my way around the Bible's contradicting claims by supposing that God created the universe with the appearance of age and with the current species we have today, but evolution still couldn't be true. It didn't occur to me just how deceptive this would make God.
   
5. I noticed that the way Christians described evolution was completely different to the way scientists described evolution. I realised I probably didn't know as much about it as I thought I did, so I bought 'The Greatest Show On Earth' by Richard Dawkins. By Chapter 2 I was convinced evolution is the only explanation of the origin of species that is supported by evidence - and well supported it is.
   
6. I started wrestling with the biblical account of Creation again, trying to figure out how there can be original sin if Adam isn't a historical figure (because of evolution).
   
7. I can't remember where I originally read this, but it's also covered in The Bible Unearthed. I read about the true history of the Israelites, according to modern archaeological findings. It turns out that the first five books of the Bible are almost completely fabricated. No good evidence of Israelites in Egypt, no good evidence of an Exodus, no good evidence of the Israelites invading Canaan and sacking cities. In fact the Israelites were Canaanites and worshiped Canaanite gods. It wasn't until around 700 BC that the Biblical narrative (or an early form of it) was concocted to unite the divided nations of Judah and Israel.
   
   With the Biblical account of history and Creation revealed to be a complete fabrication, there was no good reason to believe the rest of it. I've been an Atheist for a few months now.

I find the books written by Bart D. Ehrman to be both informative and interesting. I have read three of them: Forged: Writing in the Name of God - Why the Bible's Authors Are Not Who We Think They Are

Misquoting Jesus

Jesus, Interrupted: Revealing the Hidden Contradictions in the Bible (And Why We Don't Know About Them)
All three of them are solid reads.

Online Bible Links:
http://www.blueletterbible.org/
http://www.skepticsannotatedbible.com/
https://www.biblegateway.com/ (over 100 versions and 50 translations of the bible, including audio.)
The Holy Bible, English Standard Version (with Cross-References) [Kindle Edition] [free]

(edit:formatting to make it easier to read)

Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth is more specifically about the key character in the New Testament. However, the perspective of examining historical veracity makes for an an excellent read.

Having read The Book of Mammon that sounds exactly like how the Church Office Building operates.

Home teaching started in 1963 when TSCC underwent correlation. Harold Lee gave a talk in the priesthood session of conference explaining correlation, and in that talk he announced the start of the home teaching program (starts on page 86, second column, Chart #6. It was basically a way to make sure everybody got the word out about this new-fangled correlation and to enforce priesthood hierarchy/keep tabs on all the priesthood holders.

If you don't know much about correlation (the period in the 60s when the church became completely centralized, started white-washing its history, and got rid of inconsistent/contradictory doctrines/teachings) I would recommend the work of Daymon Smith. He has an entertaining blog as well as some great books (one about his experience working in the COB), and did his PhD in anthropology studying the history of Mormon correlation. His dissertation is long but completely fascinating. For a shorter account of correlation, see the interview he did with BCC. Also, here's a hilarious video the church put out in the 60s about the "importance" of home teaching (cue the loser, inactive dad, and the clean-cut home teacher who is a better father-figure to the confused, but faithful, young man).

I think visiting teaching started in Nauvoo when the Relief Society was organized as a way for the sisters to go around to collect donations to then distribute to those in need.

That's supposedly covered in this book, written by an insider who got fed up with all the shenanigans in the penis building.

https://www.amazon.com/Caesars-Messiah-Conspiracy-Flavian-Signature/dp/1461096405

Exhibit 1
Exhibit 2
Exhibit 3

Two Jewish archaeologists who didn't even give a shit about "The New Testament". Reads like a spy novel. Fantastic book. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000FBJG86/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1

Here's a simplified summary of a number of sources, detailing the polytheistic roots of Judaism and the complex authorship of the Torah:

• A History of God
  
  One of the primary sources for that video is a book by Karen Armstrong, A History of God
  
  Regarding the multiple authors of the Torah, there's a book called Who Wrote the Bible by Richard Elliot Friedman. In Bible scholarship, the explanation for the authorship of the Torah is called the Documentary Hypothesis (or the DH). Basically, there are four primary authors identified, and how they created a patchwork of each book. While there's a lot of debate around the DH, it's still the best explanation of the origins and sources of the Torah.
  
  The next book is, The Rocks Don't Lie by geologist David Montgomery. This book will conclusively explain how incompatible the Noah's Flood story is with the geological record. What's interesting about this book is that the author isn't simply trying to knock down the story from Genesis, but is trying to understand how it might be an exaggerated account of a localized flood event.
  
  The next one is The Bible Unearthed by Israel Finklestein and Neil Asher Silberman. Dr. Finklestein is one of the leading archaeologists in Israel today. In this book, they explain a history of the Jews and Israel based on the archaeological evidence rather than on the Bible. Here is a 90 minute video based on the book. There is a longer multi-part documentary on YouTube (about 6 hours), but they get so deep into the details it's a tough watch. :D
  
  Finally, there is a Yale online course on the Introduction to the Old Testament, that's well worth the investment of time.
  
  Not everything presented in these materials is agreed to 100% by scholarship, but these collected works do represent where the majority of Bible scholars and historians stand on the history of the Jews and Israel. It's also important to know that scholars who believe in the literal truth of the Bible are in the minority.

Misquoting Jesus is one of his more popular-level books. He has several very detailed academic ones; see his personal page.

Misquoting Jesus?

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000SEGJF8/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1

I would class that as painfully detailed knowledge.

You could have a pretty good broad knowledge of Christianity and have read entire books and not know either of those 2 things

For example, off the top of my head, I was raised Christian and went to Bible study classes (catechism) and I've read all these (below) and more and I did not know either of the things you just quoted

• History of Christianity
  
  
• Misquoting Jesus
  
  
• The First Crusade

If anyone wants to know more about Scientology from ex-Scientologists:

http://exscientologykids.com

[Going Clear](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00A9ET54E/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1
)

The Unbreakable Miss Lovely

Going Clear wasn't written by an Ex-Scientologist, but has TONS of interviews and stories from high ranking members.

link: http://www.amazon.com/Going-Clear-Scientology-Hollywood-ebook/dp/B00A9ET54E/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1368402947&sr=8-1&keywords=going+clear

That's the way people interpret it today. They are somewhat forced to do so since the obvious literal interpretation is now obviously false. But if you look closely at the texts, it's hard to read that way. Jesus said, "This generation shall not pass away before all of these things have been fulfilled." This actually created a crisis for the early church because 70 years later, when the gospels are written, that looks like a failed prophecy.

Paul too, was certain that "The appointed time has grown short." He even told slaves to remain slaves because it was all going to be sorted out in the judgment soon anyway. Even so, Paul was instrumental in reshaping the interpretation of Jesus' teachings as spiritual rather than literal. Paul is the one who claims that the Old Testament prophesied of Jesus, that he fulfilled the prophecy of the messiah and that contrary to what the Old Testament seems to say, the Messiah is not a warrior king who would rescue the Jewish people from their occupation and establish a powerful theocratic kingdom.

There was a well-documented phenomenon of apocalyptic prophets among the Jews of Jesus' time and he fits that pattern. Several scholars have done excellent work on this subject. Resa Azlan's [Zealot] (https://www.amazon.com/Zealot-Life-Times-Jesus-Nazareth-ebook/dp/B00BRUQ7ZY#nav-subnav) is excellent.

I loved and hated Reza Aslan's Zealot.

I loved it because it gave me a real "you were there" historical sense of the time. I learned a lot about the politics, the religion, and the role of the Temple in Jewish life. The political dynamics between Rome and the Temple leaders were especially interesting.

What I hated was his attempt to construct Jesus from essentially nothing. I read Zealot shortly after reading On The Historicity of Jesus, Did Jesus Exist and End of an Illusion. (See my thoughts on those books here and here.)

Those books left me wondering whether Jesus even existed at all, as a historical figure, so I thought it was very interesting when Aslan said:

> In the end, there are only two hard historical facts about jesus of Nazareth upon which we can confidently rely: the first is that Jesus was a Jew who led a popular Jewish movement in Palestine at the beginning of the first century C.E.; the second is that Rome crucified him for doing so.

Given that this is a book about Jesus, I was surprised that he admitted so openly how flimsy the evidence for Jesus is and how little is known about him.

But then Aslan start piling assumption upon assumption. He claimed to know all sorts of things that weren't those two facts we know. For instance, later he says, "That he came from this tightly enclosed village of a few hundred impoverished Jews may very well be the only fact concerning jesus's childhood about which we can be fairly confident." Here's another one: "That Jesus had brothers is, despite the Catholic doctrine of his mother Mary's perpetual virginity, virtual indisputable." Still more: "By then practically every artisan and day laborer in the province would have poured into Sepphoris to take part in what was the largest restoration project of the time, and one can be fairly certain that Jesus and his brothers, who lived a short distance away in Nazareth, would have been among them."

These are just a few examples I highlighted while reading the book. The point is, the books about whether there was really a historical Jesus got me very sensitive to how little evidence we really have about Jesus. Maybe somebody with that name preached and was crucified, but almost all of the details in the bible appear to be made up decades after Jesus died. And yet Aslan builds and builds and builds on this shaky foundation to create a Jesus who — to me — seems entirely implausible. Or maybe I should say it differently. His Jesus is plausible, but not particularly likely.

Here is a link to the book on amazon: http://www.amazon.com/kindle-store/dp/B00BRUQ7ZY

I got kind of lazy with the links, but anyways here is my collection of Christianity related books, links etc.

Listening:

• Thomas Sheehan - Historical Jesus (Stanford available through iTunes U)
  
• Bart D. Ehrman - Historical Jesus (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill)
  
• Christine Hayes - Intro to OT (Yale university)
  
• (Note I'm not sure this is a legal download...) Bart D. Ehrman - From Jesus to Constantine (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill)
  
• The Bible Geek with Robert M. Price
  
• NT Pod with Mark Goodacre (Duke Uni)
  
• From Israelite to Jew with Michael Satlow (Brown University)
  
• <http://www.bringyou.to/apologetics/audio.htm>
  
  
  Books:
  
  
• Meaning of the Dead Sea Scrolls: Their Significance For Understanding the Bible, Judaism, Jesus, and Christianity
  
• When Time Shall Be No More: Prophecy Belief in Modern American Culture (Studies in Cultural History)
  
• Vision and Persuasion: Rhetorical Dimensions of Apocalyptic Discourse
  
• The life of Jesus critically examined - Old Classic
  
• David and Solomon: In Search of the Bible's Sacred Kings and the Roots of the Western Tradition
  
• The Bible Unearthed: Archaeology's New Vision of Ancient Israel and the Origin of Its Sacred Texts
  
• From Jesus to Christ: The Origins of the New Testament Images of Christ
  
• Re-Imagine the World
  
• The Apocalyptic Jesus: A Debate
  
• Who Killed Jesus?: Exposing the Roots of Anti-Semitism in the Gospel Story of the Death of Jesus
  
• The Historical Jesus: The Life of a Mediterranean Jewish Peasant
  
• Beyond the Passion: Rethinking the Death and Life of Jesus
  
• <http://www.amazon.com/New-Testament-history-investigation-problems/dp/0687279267>
  
• <http://www.amazon.com/Christian-Delusion-Why-Faith-Fails/dp/1616141689>
  
• <http://www.amazon.com/Gospel-Fictions-Randel-Helms/dp/0879755725>
  
• <http://www.amazon.com/WHAT-GOSPEL-Rose-Charles-TALBERT/dp/086554185X>
  
• <http://www.amazon.com/Jesus-Christ-Origins-Testament-Images/dp/0300084579>
  
• <http://www.amazon.com/Mystery-Acts-Unraveling-Its-Story/dp/159815012X>
  
• <http://www.amazon.com/Jesus-Outside-New-Testament-Introduction/dp/0802843689#reader_0802843689>
  
• <http://www.amazon.com/Great-Angel-Study-Israels-Second/dp/0664253954>
  
• <http://www.amazon.com/Holy-Writ-Oral-Lit-Folklore/dp/0847691985>
  
• Bart D. Ehrman - Misquoting Jesus
  
• Bart D. Ehrman - Jesus, Interrupted
  
• Dictionary of Deities and Demons in the Bible
  
• Earl Doherty - The Jesus Puzzle - A Novel About the Greatest Question of Our Time
  
• John Dominic Crossan - The Last Week - A Day-by-Day Account of Jesus's Final Week in Jerusalem
  
• Richard Carrier - Not the Impossible Faith
  
• The Oxford Bible Commentary
  
  
  Links
  
  
• Bible Map
  
• Bible.cc
  
• Red Egg
  
• Gospel Parallels
  
• Greek Biblical and Modern Pronunciation
  
• Nag Hammadi Library
  
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Documentary_Hypothesis
  
• http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/richard_carrier/NTcanon.html
  

Also, as a side-note I've also read The Historical Jesus which concludes that Jesus was thrown in a ditch like all other peasants.

And How Jesus Became God by atheist Bart Ehrman who sees the resurrection witness as nothing more that a public delusion comparable to some modern examples that he gives.

I highly recommend these as well. Though I disagree with them at some important points.

I love the Name of the Wind so much it hurts. Rothfuss is an absolutely amazing author, and if you love the subtlety, complexity, foreshadowing, and maturity of Martin's books you will love Rothfuss'.

Joe Abercrombie's series are thematically very similar. They're very dark, very visceral. Abercrombie brings more life to his characters than I think anyone else in the genre, including Martin. The story itself isn't nearly as complex as those written by Martin or Rothfuss, though that isn't to say it's simple and twist-free by any means.

Also, if you enjoy the world of the Seven Kingdoms, there's some great historical non-fiction that you might enjoy. I just finished the Crusades by Thomas Asbridge, which was fascinating. Edward I: A great and terrible king by Marc Morris was also excellent. The latter you will enjoy if you loved all the political wranglings of the nobility in Westeros, while the latter will appeal if you care more about the military aspects. Right now I'm reading Millenium: the end of the world and the forging of Christendom by Tom Holland, which is all about Europe at the turn of the first millenium AD, and the biblical prophecies of the apocalypse rampant at the time. It's the background for so much of the prophecies you see in fantasy series everywhere, and it's quite a fascinating read.

Edit: I suppose it's worth pointing out that the above books were recommended to me by Joe Abercrombie, when I asked him in the comments on his blog for some recommendations of well-written historical books to be used as source material for fantasy worlds.

Other fantasies that I can recommend: Scott Lynch's Gentlemen Bastards books, Peter V Brett's The Warded Man and its sequel. Brent Weeks is good too, though I have mixed feelings on how he ended his first series. Wheel of Time is a classic, but it's long and drags (though Brandon Sanderson has apparently finished it up quite nicely, I just haven't found time to read the 12 books necessary to catch myself back up). Speaking of which, Brandon Sanderson is good too. He's written Elantris (meh), the Mistborn trilogy (quite a fun read, though it won't knock your socks off), and the Way of Kings (which is supposed to be utterly fantastic). He also wrote another book in the Mistborn world that is supposed to be amazing as well.

I don't know a complete collection but This particluar version of the Nag Hammadi library is the best one I've found (I have like 4 different ones).

I also recommend looking for books by Jean-Yves Leloup as I find hte translations and notes very well done.

Another place to look is http://earlychristianwritings.com

Having a copy of the Nag Hammadi Scriptures is a must.

Sure. The first thing I did was read the primary sources and pretty much in chronological order. I began with the Apostolic Fathers (Michael Holmes has this edition with Greek and English). I then read some 2nd century stuff, especially Irenaeus. Cyprian, Tertullian, etc, were all important. The fourth century took me forever to read through. I probably stayed in the 4th century for a year.

For secondary literature, I'd recommend, in no particular order:

Jaroslav Pelikan, The Christian Tradition: A History of the Development of Doctrine, Vol. 1: The Emergence of the Catholic Tradition

J.N.D. Kelley, Early Christian Doctrines

Henry Chadwick, The Early Church (Chadwick is my doctoral grandfather, so to speak)

Adrian Fortescue, The Early Papacy: To the Synod of Chalcedon

Benedicta Ward's translation of The Sayings of the Desert Fathers

Less to do with Church history, but filling in some intellectual gaps:

Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, The Spirit of the Liturgy

Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, Called to Communion

Henri de Lubac, Catholicism: Christ and the Common Destiny of Man (This may shock people that I recommend it, but I do like the nouvelle théologie every now and again)

I also welcome /u/koine_lingua to offer some of his own recommendations to give some balance if he'd like.

Jaroslav Pelikan's "The Christian Tradition: A History of the Development of Doctrine."

Jaroslav Pelikan's The Christian Tradition: A History of the Development of Doctrine volumes one through three.

Dense and comprehensive.

Edit: Though those are a history of doctrinal development, not of church history per se...

Yes, and also a good writer. Erudite and entertaining. He's probably best known for a book he did several years ago called Atheist Delusions: The Christian Revolution and its Fashionable Enemies, which is a response to some of the NuAtheists, particularly correcting their many historical errors.

He did another book called The Doors of the Sea: Where was God in the Tsunami, which is an expanded version of this article on the problem of evil.

And he recently published a book called The Experience of God: Being, Consciousness, Bliss, which I haven't finished reading yet, but is basically an attempt to give an account of what it is that monotheists (and some Hindus) are actually talking about when they talk about 'capital G' God. So far, it's really good.

>Name me fucking one.

I said I would, and I am:
Why God Won't Go Away: Is the New Atheism Running on Empty?

Why There Almost Certainly Is a God: Doubting Dawkins

Atheist Delusions: The Christian Revolution and Its Fashionable Enemies

Nonsense of a High Order:: The Confused World of Modern Atheism

The Devil's Delusion: Atheism and its Scientific Pretensions

Against Atheism: Why Dawkins, Hitchens, and Harris Are Fundamentally Wrong

The Atheist Delusion


Furthermore though, Christian rehtoric is often explicitly anti-atheist in its messaging without having to be specifically about that. They attiribute morality to themselves and imply that atheists are necessarily immoral or that their values are the only true way to think. If you want proof of this, you need look no further than how much prejudice there still is against atheists in the U.S. statistically.

I know that this wasn't your question, but it's worth mentioning to anyone who stumbles upon this thread with a similar experience.

Philosophical materialism (i.e. Richard Dawkins and his ilk) is also based on premises that are both unproven and, by their very nature, unproveable. Pick your poison, but don't pretend that one is based on pure reason while the other is based on pure fantasy. Both positions (religious and atheistic) can be rational ones.

Edit--
This is also one of the finest books dismantling a number of new atheist authors and common fallacious claims about theism: http://www.amazon.com/Atheist-Delusions-Christian-Revolution-Fashionable/dp/0300164297

For all things science and religion I recommend: Where the Conflict Really Lies by Alvin Plantinga and Atheist Delusions by David Bentley Hart (please forgive the title, it was the editor's choice not his).

For the "problem" of Evil I suggest God, Freedom, and Evil again by Plantinga and Evil and the Justice of God by NT Wright.

As a general primer on theology and philosophy go look at Philosophical Foundations for a Christian Worldview by JP Morgan Moreland (not the banking institution) and William Lane Craig.

I'm currently reading The Darkening Age by Catherine Nixey, it's about the destruction of the Roman society and religion. Quite a fascinating book. https://www.amazon.com/Darkening-Age-Christian-Destruction-Classical/dp/0544800885

I suspect you're just trolling, but if you are sincere there's a whole history you might enjoy: https://www.amazon.com/Same-Sex-Unions-Premodern-Europe-Boswell/dp/0679751645/

Actually that's not really true.

A number of early rituals for same-sex unions exist in the doumentary record of the early European church which, while controversial for obvious reasons, show a quite different picture of the premodern church.

Link

You are profoundly idiotic. Same sex marriage has been performed for thousands of years dumbass. https://www.amazon.com/Same-Sex-Unions-Premodern-Europe-Boswell/dp/0679751645

I'm really concerned that you don't understand the nature of textual criticism. I'd like to recommend the King James Only Controversy by James White. It's a book that speaks very well to the exact questions you seem to have.

You should check out James White's book, The King James Only Controversy.

The King James Only Controversy

Even if you don't have any dealings with KJV Onlyists this was an amazing read that gives you a real appreciation for the Bible.

The Potter's Freedom

There's a revised edition now but this is the one I read. Even if you're already a Calvinist and even if you never read that horrendous piece of work, "Chosen But Free", this is still an amazing read. Gives you an appreciation for how consistent Calvinism really is.

I'm an ESV guy, but it was nice to read your post. I do have several KJV bibles in my house, in case I get the urge. I never considered how KJVO would work in non-English communities, something new to think about.

> Pastor Lawson is just awesome I actually cried watching one of his sermons when he preached about hell.

I think I saw that one too.

Regarding KJVO, if you haven't already, you should check out James White's stuff. He has had several podcasts, debates and even a book on this very topic. All very useful.

> I have seen the intensity of the KJVO movement seep Into the Hispanic community and which I believe was not there before!!

Well KJVO may be a step up from the RCC and the Prosperity Gospel which are powerful forces in that community.

Um no. KJV onlyism is stupid and dangerous and completely unbiblical. Here's a great book on the subject.


There are some great translations out there and our ability to translate has come a long way since the King James Version was first translated. I personally like the ESV but I use a few. Some "Thought for Thought" versions and some "Word for Word" versions and many times both depending on my goal.


I do avoid versions like "The Message" and the NIV though.


If you want to be an originalist you better learn Hebrew, Greek, and Aramaic. Otherwise your precious KJV isn't Gods perfect word by your own standard.

I really suggest you read this
(http://www.amazon.com/Zealot-Life-Times-Jesus-Nazareth/dp/0812981480/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1413083374&sr=8-1&keywords=zealot+reza+aslan)

If you have a Kindle or smartphone, I can lend it to you for 14 days. Send my a private message if you want to read it.

For the Life of the World by Fr. Alexander Schmemann. I was raised Southern Baptist, and then loosely protestant as an adult. This is the book that answered so many questions for me. It's beautifully written, for one, and goes really in depth to Orthodox theology in a way that I could understand.

Yes, I definitely recommend Alexander Schmemann’s For the Life of the World, which presents an Orthodox approach to the Eucharist. It’s my understanding that the historic Christian tradition — while debating what exactly are the Sacraments and how exactly to correctly celebrate the Eucharist — the entirety of life is sacramental and eucharistic.

The short answer is not much. What we know comes from critical analysis of the synoptic gospels, anthropological and archeological facts about the region that we can use to interpret those texts, and Roman writings from the time period, most importantly those of Jewish-Roman historian Josephus. There's a whole field of scholarship on the historical Jesus, and you should check out the work of the Jesus Seminar(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesus_Seminar).
I can recommend a couple books on the subject as well:
If you want the full monty, big ol' weighty tome, you need John Dominic Crossan's The Historical Jesus: The life of a Mediterranean Jewish Peasant. -http://www.amazon.com/The-Historical-Jesus-Mediterranean-Peasant/dp/0060616296

For the shorter, more digestible version, see his book Jesus: A revolutionary Biography http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/006180035X/ref=pd_lpo_sbs_dp_ss_1?pf_rd_p=1535523722&pf_rd_s=lpo-top-stripe-1&pf_rd_t=201&pf_rd_i=0060616296&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_r=1QHBK1Y6G36CNGSTPAZ7

For a counterpoint to many of Crossan's arguments, see Dale Allison, Jesus of Nazareth http://www.amazon.com/Jesus-Nazareth-Millenarian-Dale-Allison/dp/0800631447

New Testament Scholarship is a really interesting field and if you really want to answer the question you've asked here you should check out the work these historians/religious studies scholars have been doing in the last 20-30 years.

Well, the birth narratives and trial dialogues are narrative devices and aren't historical (Is 7:14 also isn't about a virgin. You didn't say that, but in case you don't know).

I'm pretty sure the Samaritan woman thing is from John, and again, John preserves less historical information about Jesus than other gospels. It was also written a lot later than Mark or Matthew.

For more information, you can read this book by Bart Ehrman, or this book by John Dominic Crossan. Crossan's book is brilliant, but it is pretty dense. I think he says that Jesus being the Messiah is the post-Easter Jesus.

You could also ask /r/AcademicBiblical for more resources. Even if some people there might not personally hold to the view, they can probably direct you to scholars that do (and those that don't).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I_To-cV94Bo&feature=youtu.be

https://www.amazon.com/Crusades-Authoritative-History-Holy-Land/dp/0060787295/192-7147632-0755714?ie=UTF8&keywords=the%20crusades%20asbrige&qid=1370815963&ref_=sr_1_sc_1&sr=8-1-spell

The Crusades: The Authoritative History of the War for the Holy Land

https://www.amazon.com/Crusades-Authoritative-History-Holy-Land/dp/0060787295

There's so much information to convey so this book is very broad strokes. But it does a great job of covering both the Christian and Muslim worlds equally. I love it.

In a Gnostic-Christian capacity, the apocryphal books, which are collected in the Nag Hammadi scriptures (https://www.amazon.com/Nag-Hammadi-Scriptures-Translation-Complete/dp/0061626007/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1543247818&sr=8-1&keywords=nag+hammadi+scriptures) talk about the demiurge to be the god of the Old Testament who represents a diety who is unconscious of the fact that he is NOT the supreme, all-creating godhead but rather something being sometimes malevolent, caught up and identified within himself and his so-called creation. Christ was sent here to liberate us from him or our own unconsciousness on a path of individuation towards the self in which Christ himself is a symbol of.

​

So the joke is comparing a semi-conscious, ego-dominated being (us) to something truly whole and conscious which would be the symbol of the self.

​

Knowledge of the demiurge predates Christianity too. So there are other sources for info on this "diety". I believe he is spoken of in Greek mythology as well.

Pick up the Nag Hammadi Gnostic Scriptures

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0061626007/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1500175879&sr=8-1&pi=AC_SX236_SY340_QL65&keywords=nag+hammadi&dpPl=1&dpID=51AWQnqkKKL&ref=plSrch

It's hard to just jump into reading the Fathers unaided. I would suggest reading some introductions to Patristic thought while reading the Fathers alongside. For introductions, check out, in no particular order:

Pelikan, Jaroslav. The Christian Tradition: A History of the Development of Doctrine, Vol. I: The Emergence of the Catholic Tradition (100-600)

Wilken, Robert Louis. The Spirit of Early Christian Thought

Chadwick, Henry. The Early Church

O'Keefe, John and R.R. Reno. Sanctified Vision: An Introduction to Early Christian Interpretation of the Bible


As to which of the Fathers you should read:

Irenaeus, Against Heresies

Origen, On First Principles

Tertullian, Against Praxeas

Augustine, On Christian Doctrine

_, Confessions

___, On the Trinity

, Homilies on 1 John

Ephrem, Hymns (Check out McVey's translation)

Basil of Caesarea, Epistles 210 and 214

, On the Holy Spirit

Athanasius, On the Incarnation of the Word

Eusebius of Caesarea, Church History

The Martyrdom of Perpetua and Felicity

Egeria's travel diary (the Peregrinatio Egeriae)

Rediscovering the Church Fathers: Who They Were and How They Shaped the Church by Michael Haykin

The Spirit of Early Christian Thought: Seeking the Face of God by Robert Louis Wilken

The Early Church (The Penguin History of the Church) by Henry Chadwick

Early Christian Doctrines by J.N.D. Kelly

And of course, works such as On the Incarnation by St. Athanasius, and The Confessions by St. Augustine

https://www.amazon.ca/Early-Church-Emergent-Christianity-Revised/dp/0140231994

I read the History of Christian Theology: An Introduction as a college freshman.

Also:

Henry Chadwick's History of the Early Church

Owen Chadwick's The Reformation

Carl Sagan talks about it in this book
We (animals/life) have an understanding of physics built into us, the same way a lion knows how to chase down its prey.

I really enjoyed Carl Sagan's The Varieties of Scientific Experience: A Personal View of the Search for God. I like how Sagan acknowledges the beauty in religion, but he also demonstrates the beauty of a scientific view of the universe and our place in it. It's a little less harsh or combative than other atheistic work I've read, but it's just as committed to truth.

Sometimes I wish I had said what he said when my parents were asking if I believed in God. He said something like, "If by God you mean an anthropomorphic supreme being, then I don't believe that that particular God exists. But if by God you mean the sum total of all of the laws of nature, then I believe that that God indeed does exist." It probably would have made things go more smoothly.

THIS!! Sagan had one of the most humbling approaches to religion and science and was a most eloquent writer/speaker. You seriously cannot go wrong with this one. One of my favorite books.

The Varieties of Scientific Experience: A Personal View of the Search for God - Carl Sagan

http://www.amazon.com/The-Varieties-Scientific-Experience-Personal/dp/0143112627

I read Betraying Spinoza: The Renegade Jew Who Gave Us Modernity a couple months ago. Spinoza is popularly thought of as a pantheist, yet his philosophy was instrumental to Freethinking.

An especially enjoyable book, I say, is The Varieties of Scientific Experience: A Personal View of the Search for God by Carl Sagan. Or you might enjoy his novel Contact, which is essentially a novelization of Varieties.

The Christian Tradition: A History of the Development of Doctrine by Jaroslav Pelikan is an excellent series.

I second this! Amazon links, in case someone needs them:

Vol. 1, Vol. 2, Vol. 3, Vol. 4, Vol. 5

Dan Brown isn't a source. This is a source. Or this one.

There’s a lot of good responses here already but I wanted to offer some resources and ideas that have helped me.
First of all, despite what the new atheists say, you don’t need faith to believe in God, which is why there are so many deists in academia. The weight of the scientific evidence alone is enough to conclude that there must be some kind of intelligence behind reality. This includes the fine-tuning argument, a variation of which convinced Antony Flew, a life long atheist academic and strong critic of religion to change his mind about God and embrace deism, and quantum mechanics, which doesn’t prove God’s existence but rather undermines materialist assumptions about the fundamental nature of reality. These findings have convinced others in the scientific community such as lifelong atheist, Richard Conn Henry, a professor of theoretical physics at MIT to embrace deism.
So just based on what’s happening with physics, it’s reasonable to believe that there’s some kind of intelligence behind reality. However, this in no way proves the existence of the God of the Bible.
To support the Christian view of God you can look at the evidence for the reliability of New Testament accounts. This is where faith comes in. You have to decide whether or not you believe that Jesus actually rose from the dead. Obviously, there isn’t a scientific way to definitively prove whether or not an historical event happened. But if you want support for the idea that miracles happen and are relatively common, even today, I’d recommend Craig S Keeners magisterial 2 volume work “Miracles” which details hundreds of modern day miracle accounts.

Other reading:
The Divine Conspiracy by Dallas Willard who was a professor of philosophy for many years at USC, helped me to understand my faith at a deeper level, which has helped immensely. It turns out it’s much easier to believe in something when it actually makes sense to you.

On Guard by William Lane Craig explains many of the logical proofs that other commenters have offered here, which are great but can be really difficult to understand without spending a good amount of time with them.

Atheist Delusions by David Bentley Hart: Hart is a leading Orthodox theologian and philosopher who spends a lot of time talking about the logical incoherence of materialism. All his stuff is great but it’s difficult.

This is just a small sample of what’s out there in terms of apologetics but it’s a start. There’s enough that you could spend your entire life reading compelling arguments for the God’s existence. However, the most effective way to strengthen your faith, in my opinion, is to see how effective the teachings of Jesus are for yourself, to ACTUALLY DO what he says and see how it transforms your life first hand. This is how you make your faith unshakable. Nothing beats personal experience.

It's a massive load of bantha poodoo, and only goes to illustrate the person's ignorance of history.

You might take a look at a book called Atheist Delusions: the Christian revolution and its fashionable enemies by David Bentley Hart. He addresses basically this exactly line of reasoning and dismantles it.

Another fun book is The Fall of the Roman Empire by Peter Heather. That's a more secular work, focused on the history, not on Christianity, though you simply cannot discuss the end days of the Western Roman Empire without addressing Christianity in some sense. It will give you a bit more context as to 1) why, exactly, the Empire fell, and 2) what led to the so-called Dark Ages.

Here's a hint, though: The reason most any knowledge at all was preserved during the "Dark Ages" was due to its being preserved both in Christian monasteries in the West and in the Christian Byzantine Empire in the East (the Renaissance being partly kicked off by the flight of Byzantine humanists to the West as the Turkish invaders were approaching Constantinople).

In fact, the Medieval Period was very much not a time of stagnation; there were advances in metallurgy and agriculture, for example, the latter, combined with a period of warmth, led to a population boom which, ultimately, led to the devastation of the Black Death, which caused a massive upheaval in European society helping to pave the way to the modern world. Also cannons!

This book is for you:

The Darkening Age: The Christian Destruction of the Classical World

First, I will suggest a good book for your education.
The Darkening Age: The Christian Destruction of the Classical World
by Catherine Nixey

Your answers

1. Coven rituals are very close. Its like a family. Our ritual relations with God and Goddess include "Drawing Down" which is a form of "possession." Possession is very intimate.
   
   
2. My experience has been that having one spouse Wiccan and the other Christian often leads to serious conflict and divorce. There is a huge chasm of moral and ethical teaching and values that no longer are shared. Often the Christian spouse become intolerant.
   
   
3. Reddit/wicca/ is one of the best on-line sources for questions. Wicca is best learned in person from an Elder Priest or Priestess. Someone who wanted to learn Christianity would be well served to go talk to the minister. I'm sure you must have performed that role during your time as a Christian minister. Wiccan clergy also have a similar role.
   
   
4. We tell people about the Goddess, "She changes everything She touches." If you start the journey watch out. The changes are always for the better, but sometimes can be difficult along the way.
   
   Last words:
   Go find a local Wiccan group or "coven." Ask to speak to the Priest or Priestess. Look on witchvox.com for local listings, or Google "Wicca, mytown."
   We recommend some books on our coven reading list, but we strongly recommend personal discussion.
   

It's arguments over interpretation of very ancient texts. Kind of like why some denominations thing divorce or alcohol or women being ordained is a problem, while others think they're just fine.

The texts often cited as condemning same gender relationships aren't nearly as clear or obvious in meaning or application as they're often presented. Most general lists of the wicked that include "homosexuals" can be dismissed outright; there was no word in Greek or Hebrew for "homosexuals" as a class of people. The word in most of those lists literally means "soft," and was used pejoratively to mean anything from physical weakness to greed or cowardice. German and English translations from a couple hundred years ago typically translated it as "masturbator."

The story of Sodom is often brought up, but it's an ancient hospitality morality play. Classic trope, gods or demi-gods appear in human form and seek shelter. If welcomed and protected (like Abraham did) they give reward (Abraham got Issac). If attacked they punish (in Judges there's a nearly identical story, which leads to the decline of the tribe of Benjamin). It doesn't have much to do with any same gender relationships that aren't attempted gang-rape of angels.

Even the famous levitical passage on not lying with another man as with a woman isn't as clear as it looks. It comes sandwiched between a variety of laws long abandoned as no longer relevant (have you sprinkled your basement with bird blood to purify it from house leprosy lately?), but this one somehow still gets attention.

It comes in the context of the Babylonian exile when traumatized people were trying to figure out what went wrong, and how to maintain their identity as a people without a state. Many concluded that they were being punished, and their punishment could end if they abandoned all religious practices they deemed "un-Israelite." Many of these practices had been common in Israel for centuries, but had come to be associated with foreigners. Sacred sexual rites including m/m pairings were among the practices rejected.

And the Babylonian exile brought the authors of the text into contact with Babylonian culture, which included the practice of providing aristocratic men with catamites (boy sex slaves) or eunuchs as a pregnancy-free substitute for women. Pregnancy was dangerous for aristocratic wives, and female slaves risked bloodline-endangering bastards.

Men were castrated as boys to keep them feminine, and they were literally used "as if they were women" - as available fuck objects who belonged to their master. Both Babylonian and Israelite cultures were profoundly misogynist, and to have sex with a man as if he were a woman was to make him your slave and rape him. The authors of Leviticus are clearly not fans of m/m sex, but their perspective is like that of a man whose only experience of m/m relationships came from seeing brutal rape.

Compare this with, say, the story of young future-King David, and Saul's son Jonathan. Their relationship is a pretty unambiguously sexual, divinely blessed union of two men.

Then get to the New Testament, and the only reference to same gender relationships (and the only negative reference to f/f relationships in the whole Bible) comes from Paul's letter to the Romans. In it he describes how "idolaters" (non-Jews, probably members of the cult of Bacchus) worshiped other gods, therefor the real god punished them by making them super gay. He is probably thinking of the sacred sexual rites the cult of Bacchus practiced in Rome, which included various gender pairings. Paul is clearly not a fan, but Paul isn't god, and none of this is very applicable to those whose gay sex is not part of cultic worship of Bacchus.

So... yea. Different denominations have very different ideas on how various passages should be accurately translated, interpreted, and applied to daily life. In relatively modern Christian history a homophobic attitude has been the assumed default. But it hasn't been like that consistently or universally throughout Christian history. There were medieval knights married, blessed, and buried together. There are pre-Constantine saints in divinely blessed m/m relationships.

This will be a long post, but you might find it interesting. If you look at history, you'll find that humanity is simply returning to how it used to be. Our hunter-gatherer ancestors were by far the most egalitarian (in terms of gender equality) societies that have ever existed.

Here's a study on ancestral 'androphilic males' who were transgender and adopted female social roles: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/258845876_Male_Androphilia_in_the_Ancestral_Environment_An_Ethnological_Analysis

"The kin selection hypothesis posits that male androphilia (male sexual attraction to adult males) evolved because androphilic males invest more in kin, thereby enhancing inclusive fitness. Increased kin-directed altruism has been repeatedly documented among a population of transgendered androphilic males, but never among androphilic males in other cultures who adopt gender identities as men ... Among transgendered societies, negative societal attitudes toward homosexuality were unlikely. We conclude that the ancestral human sociocultural environment was likely conducive to the expression of the transgendered form of male androphilia."

So ancestrally transgender male-to-female individuals existed, and functioned within hunter-gatherer societies. They were valued members of society because of their "kin-directed altruism", meaning, their selfless concern/nurture of family and adoption of traditionally female social roles in their societies.

"In contrast, transgendered androphilic males often occupy alternative gender role categories distinct from the categories of “men” and “women,” and they exhibit gender role presentation that is markedly similar to that of members of the opposite sex within their given cultural context. Both sex-gender congruent and transgendered male androphilia may occur within a given culture, but typically one or the other tends to predominate (Whitam 1983). For example, the sex-gender congruent form is more common in many Western cultures, whereas the transgendered form appears to be more common in a number of non-Western cultures."

Homosexual males and straight male-to-female transgenders both existed ancestrally and historically, however transgenders existed more in non-Western cultures than Western ones. Now consider the "berdache", or Two-spirit native Americans. When Christian Europeans came to America they viewed these transgender people as "sodomites" or homosexuals, and as such, in a very negative light due to their Christian religious views on homosexuality.

"Unfortunately, depending on an oral tradition to impart our ways to future generations opened the floodgates for early non-Native explorers, missionaries, and anthropologists to write books describing Native peoples and therefore bolstering their own role as experts. These writings were and still are entrenched in the perspective of the authors who were and are mostly white men." Pember, Mary Annette (Oct 13, 2016). "'Two Spirit' Tradition Far From Ubiquitous Among Tribes".

A book written by historian John Boswell has plenty of evidence to show that homosexuals were actually accepted by the Church in early pre-modern Europe: https://www.amazon.com/Same-Sex-Unions-Premodern-Europe-Boswell/dp/0679751645.

At some point in time however, major religions such as Christianity and Islam decreed homosexuality and transgenderism sins, and since then, atrocious human rights abuses have been inflicted on gay or trans people. History has been written by the victors, and often the victors were Christian, and thus history and religious dogma has skewed the views of many uneducated (uneducated in a historical sense) modern societies. There's absolutely nothing wrong with being a feminine man or masculine woman, or transgender woman or transgender man, or homosexual or bisexual etc, and historically there wasn't either. The widespread, powerful corrupting influence of religion has played a major role in shaping homophobia and transphobia, especially in Western societies today, which is a shame. But thankfully for us, things are returning to the (historical) norm.

For which part?

Polygamy is strictly upheld in the Bible itself. (I'm sure I could find you specific passages, if this is what you're asking me to source)

The U.S. is a secular state. It's enshrined in almost every one of our founding documents.

I suspect what you're asking about are Christian gay marriages, though. There's an excellent book, which relies on a lot of source documents called Same Sex Unions in Pre-Modern Europe. It goes from Rome during the founding of Christianity right up to approximately the Schism, if I remember correctly.

For Balance I also recommend James White's book The King James Controversy(written for a different purpose in the 90s before Ehrman wrote on the subject but the core issues are the same as those Ehrman brings up) and the debate between James White and Bart Ehrman.

Book: http://www.amazon.com/King-James-Only-Controversy-The/dp/0764206052

Debate: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P35zWvmkHBo

>For those of you who have looked in to biblical historicity, on any level,

I guess this technically qualifies me?

>how do you reconcile potential errors and inconsistencies

Such as?

>as well as the concepts that stories of YHWH and Jesus could have been co-opted from other faiths

By asking for primary source evidence for these claims.

>Are there any books or websites you could recommend?

Jesus Through Middle Eastern Eyes by Kenneth Bailey

Evidence for Christianity by John McDowell

The King Jams Only Controversy by James White (this is actually a book about textual criticism and manuscript transmission).

Jesus and the Eye-Witnesses by Richard Baukham.

The Resurrection of Jesus: A New Historiographical Approach by Mike Licona.

This book series by NT Wright.

In KJV, John 14:14 leaves out praying to him. He instructs them to pray in his name, but not to pray to him. in e.g. NASB he says: "f you ask Me anything in My name".

The KJV really doesn't leave anything out as much as it's just a different translation from a different time that used the manuscripts that they had available 400 years ago. I strongly recommend that you pick up a copy of King James Only Controversy by James White. It goes into detail about all of this. He is a very skilled teologian.

I wish you the best in your journey, whether you stick with the KJV or not. The most important thing is that we follow Jesus Christ and actually read his word. :)

The main book is a case for Christ by lee strobel

http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0310209307

Then also a book by James white:

http://www.amazon.com/King-James-Only-Controversy-Translations/dp/0764206052/ref=sr_1_4?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1376838107&sr=1-4&keywords=James+white


Now don't get me wrong these guys probably have a agenda to push, but I genuinely think they present a lot of information that can't just be over looked. So many of us don't have any faith strictly because one side presented us with so many examples of why not to based on half truths that we should at least investigate the other sides truths even if they to are only half truths. I know I fit into the line of thought of saying well gosh there is so much info against the bible from so many "experts" how can it be true. The thing is both sides are spinning it how they see fit but my faith has grown in researching the other side instead of just going with popular belief.

I suggest you read this book.

I know about it. He does not have any academic credibility. If you argue otherwise, please link me a paper of him from a peer-reviewed journal.

Meanwhile, you can read Reza Aslan's Zealot if you wonder who truly Jesus were. Unlike Holland, Aslan is an actual academic scholar.

I'll second the Zealot recommendation.

I highly recommend that you read Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth by Resa Aslan. I read the entire thing (except for the author's notes) last year.

The author claims that according to Roman records, there definitely was a Jewish rebel named Jesus of Nazareth who staged a small tussle in the Jewish temple and was crucified by Rome. Jesus Christ as described in the New Testament is mostly a myth.

So to answer your question, Jesus of Nazareth was a real person who was crucified by Rome. The gospel accounts are written by believers for various reasons.

This series gets into the Divine Liturgy around part four. This is actually a book study on a very highly regarded book, "For the Life of the World" by Fr. Alexander Schmemann that you might enjoy. The podcast is by Deacon Michael Hyatt, who's the Chairman of Thomas Nelson Publishing. Pretty down to earth and easy to listen to. Not sure on the Theosis front, hopefully someone else will chime in.

https://www.amazon.com/Life-World-Sacraments-Orthodoxy/dp/0913836087

A work that details the nature of the eucharist/the sacraments in a broader Orthodox context.

https://www.amazon.com/Meditations-Divine-Liturgy-Nikolai-Gogol/dp/0884653439

A work penned by the finest Russian author in modern history--an amazing, poetic, simple introduction to the subtext and symbolism of the Divine Liturgy.

And, as mentioned, Nicholas Kabasilas' work on the Liturgy.

I think Pope Francis is sincere, but I also think that it is more complicated than merely "doing what is needed to heal the breach." The Schism is as much about people as it is about theology. Human beings and the relationships between them are complicated at the best of times. The self-understanding of these two communities has been distinct for so long that it is easier to argue than to find common ground. There are currently "Byzantine" Churches in communion with Rome and it hasn't worked out terribly well for a lot of them (though there have been bright spots).

If I might be so bold, the "liberal" people (I don't like that word, but I don't have another one) in both camps can hardly see the point in being separate, though they would like to change things in both their Churches in other ways that would make them unrecognizable. The challenge is to have the "conservative" people satisfied with the process and expected result of re-approachment, enough to establish common cause between them. A traditional Catholic has to see that the Orthodox showing up won't force them to budge on things that they are fighting with progressives in their own Church about. The same with the Orthodox. The famous resistor of "false union" Bishop Mark of Ephesus doesn't just appeal to those seeking to preserve the Orthodox faith, but also traditionally committed Catholics.

And what happens if the Catholics are willing to compromise on a great many things, but the Orthodox get difficult on some point? Would not the Catholics feel abused? "We've come all this way and it hurts us and you still won't give up on point 9?" This has been the problem with the Miaphysites. It looks like all the theological issues have been resolved, but we seem to be left with Saints and Anathemas on both sides that have rooted the problem beyond reconciliation. We seem to be "right there" except we have beloved saints on both sides that effectively said, "you can never go there." What do we do with these saints? How do we understand them?

As for something to read. There are several books depending on your interest in using big words. :)

Lossky would be the heavy weight: http://www.amazon.com/The-Mystical-Theology-Eastern-Church/dp/0913836311/

Though I much prefer Zizioulas, more approachable and puts apophatic theology in balance: http://www.amazon.com/Being-Communion-Personhood-Contemporary-Theologians/dp/0881410292/

Of course Bishop Timothy Ware's book is the usual "internet standard recommendation: http://www.amazon.com/The-Orthodox-Way-Kallistos-Ware/dp/0913836583/

If you want something very approachable (almost no technical terms) and a little more "what does this mean" you might try an introduction to sacramental theology in general: http://www.amazon.com/For-Life-World-Sacraments-Orthodoxy/dp/0913836087/

And probably the least "theological" but I think this is both my wife and my favorite: http://www.amazon.com/Bread-Water-Wine-Oil-Experience/dp/1888212918/

> You accused the LDS church of changing its definition of tithing in order to gain financial benefit. I have asked for proof but it has to be a specific kind of proof. You still haven't met my concern and I don't think you ever will because you have no proof to back up your claims. To clarify: I want a primary source...

Do you trust your own eyes? Drive past the property just south of temple square in Salt Lake City. It doesn't take a genius to see that a lot of money went into that project. Some place the amount as high as 10% of their total assets (3.5/35). If the LDS church is not forthcoming with the actual amount that they spent, then estimates by construction accountants will have to suffice. The square footage will be on full display. Do you think that steel, concrete and skilled labor comes cheap? Whatever the exact answer ends up being, be assured that it is multi-billions. Hopefully, it will end being something people want, and not a white elephant like all of the derelict new structures that dot the landscape in Las Vegas.

By the way, the allegations in this book appear to me to be well researched and reliable. If that is not enough, then trust your own eyes, instead. The city creek mall project is the elephant in the room. Just because current tax law allows them to do it, the question remains: Did Jesus really want a mall as his first priority?

edit: trim link

Fiscally conservative...

Do you know how much they spent on City Creek? Did you know the cost of City Creek was about twice per square foot what the most expensive resort, per square foot, in Vegas cost to build? That's just one example.

Here is an in-depth read of the church fiscal responsibility. From what I understand, the author is still a faithful member somehow.

The thing about the resurrected Jesus is that there isn't any mention of it in writing until about 70 years after the supposed event. It would seem that it would have been well publicized throughout the world had it occurred- even if I happened in the backwaters of the Roman empire.

No, it seems the most logical explanation is that it was invented out of whole cloth by Flavious Josephus to help the Flavian emperor's rule over a diverse empire.

Even though his narrative and arguments are weak, I think Joseph Atwill's Caesar's Messiah is on to something.

http://www.amazon.com/Caesars-Messiah-Conspiracy-Flavian-Signature/dp/1461096405

https://www.amazon.com/Caesars-Messiah-Conspiracy-Flavian-Signature/dp/1461096405

https://www.christianforums.com/threads/caesars-messiah-debunked-joseph-atwills-covert-messiah-refuted.7779947/

both sides of it

Here is the link to the book.

Here is the link to the movie.

Enjoy! It's very thought provoking!

Not suggesting it at all. I'm stating it as a fact.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Caesars-Messiah-Conspiracy-Flavian-Signature/dp/1461096405

What I get really, really pissed off about is when some asswipe starts to claim that Christianity was the mother of science and human progress. This cocksucker (pardon my French) wrote a whole goddamn book about The Genesis of Science: How the Christian Middle Ages Launched the Scientific Revolution. One of the most hateful things about Christians is that at the drop of a hat they will lie their asses off in support of their evil hate-and-fear zombie cult.

If you are really interested you can start with this book. https://www.amazon.com/Genesis-Science-Christian-Scientific-Revolution/dp/1596981555/ref=sr_1_1?crid=38PK23BSJZG35&keywords=james+hannam&qid=1559164047&s=books&sprefix=James+han%2Cstripbooks%2C153&sr=1-1

here are a few non-wikipedia sources that i had lying around:

Wiesner-Hanks, Merry E. Cambridge History of Europe: Early Modern Europe, 1450-1789. Cambridge University Press. Cambridge. 2006. pp. 389-390
>The most famous Inquisitions in early modern Europe, those in Spain, Portugal, and Italy, were in fact very lenient in their treatment of those accused of witchcraft: the Inquisition in Spain executed only a handful of witches, the Portuguese Inquisition only one, and the Roman Inquisition none, though in each of these areas there were hundreds of cases. Inquisitors firmly believed in the power of the devil and were no less misogynistic than other judges, but they doubted very much whether the people accused of doing maleficia had actually made a pact with the devil that gave them special powers. They viewed them not as diabolical devil-worshippers, but rather superstitious and ignorant peasants who should be educated rather than executed. Their main crime was not heresy, but rather undermining the church's monopoly on supernatural remedies by claiming they had special powers. Thus Inquisitors set witchcraft within the context of heresy and apostasy, and sent the accused home with a warning and penance.

...

Cantor, Norman F. Civilization of the Middle Ages. HarperCollins. New York. 1993. pp. 425-426
>Contrary to the widespread belief in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the Inquisitors were, with few exceptions, not psychotic sadists who were insatiably seeking vengeance upon heretics through death penalties. The Inquisitors were normally well-trained canon lawyers and frequently Dominican friars or members of another religious order. Recent research has shown that they were sufficiently astute to be skeptical of the witchcraft craze of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries and to find the vast majority of the accusations against old women and similar marginal people who were alleged to be witches without substance. Therefore, the courts of the papal mandated Inquisition should never be considered in the same category as the Nazi holocaust or Stalinist purges. Surviving Inquisitorial records are sparse. But it is a good guess that even including the Spanish Inquisition of the late fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, which in more Draconian fashion operated directly under the aegis of the Spanish crown rather than the papacy, the total number of people who died at the hands of all Catholic Inquisitions did not exceed five figures and probably did not total more than ten-thousand people.

...

Hannam, James. Genesis of Science. Icon Books Ltd, London. 2009. pp. 76-78
>With heretics growing in numbers and the common people taking matters into their own hands, something had to be done. While it accepted that unrepentant heretics deserved death, the Church was perturbed about not giving them a chance to return to the faith. It was clear that dealing with heresy required a new system. For this reason, a series of dynamic popes developed a legal process called inquisition. During the Middle Ages, there was no single monolithic institution that we can call "The Inquisition". Inquisitors were simply individual agents of the pope who travelled to areas afflicted by heresy and used their special powers to deal with it. They worked in conjunction with the local secular and ecclesiastical authorities. [...] What made the inquisitors novel was that they used the latest legal techniques to investigate heresy. This was a consequence of the new interest in Roman law at the University of Bologna [...]. Until the thirteenth century, most countries continued to use the old legal codes that they had followed for generations. In these codes, the legal process was started when a member of the public made a formal "accusation". When criminal accusations were made, the defendant had a number of ways in which he could demonstrate his innocence. One was to produce character witnesses who would demand an aquittal. Another was to undergo trial by ordeal. In neither case did real evidence have much relevance. Furthermore, the accuser was vulnerable to punishment for defamation if the defendant was aquitted. Someone with a bad reputation could never win a legal battle against someone who was generally thought of as honest. The Church frowned on trial by ordeal and banned the clergy from participating in it in 1215.
>With the new system of "inquisition", the "accusation" method of justice was eventually abandoned altogether. Instead, the authorities appointed a magistrate to investigate the crime, interview witnesses, examine the evidence, and reach a verdict. In the case of heresy, the magistrate was an inquisitor and appointed by the pope. The system was an obvious improvement over the old ways and slowly spread to secular justice too. In fact, it worked so well that it still forms the backbone of criminal investigation in continental Europe to this day.
>The inquisitors had to follow strict rules and reserved the most serious punishment only for heretics who were obstinate in their error or were repeat offenders. Everyone had a second chance. When an inquisitor arrived in an area, he began his mission by declaring that he would deal mercifully with all heretics who gave themselves up. He then followed through any leads that he had received, made arrests, carried out interrogations, and declared who he thought was guilty. While inquisitors had a special dispensation from the pope to use torture, this was rare. The popular image of dank inquisitorial dungeons equipped with a variety of imaginative means of torture is a later myth, popularized after the Reformation by Protestant writers. Someone found guilty of heresy by the inquisitor had an opportunity to recant and perform a penance. Most people took this option, and the resulting penances were often quite lenient. However, those convicted of heresy were on notice that the inquisitors would deal with a second offense much more severely. In that case, as relapsed heretics, they could face life imprisonment or worse. In the same boat as repeat offenders were those whom the inquisitor convicted but who refused to admit the error of their ways. In the most serious cases, the inquisitor would hand over relapsed and obstinate heretics to the secular authorities. Officially, the Church would not execute a subject, but inquisitors knew perfectly well what the fate of those they handed over to the secular arm would be. [...]
>The inquisitors of the Middle Ages have a deservedly poor reputation. There is no defense for subjecting people to an agonizing death over religious disagreements. Executions were uncommon (occuring in about 5% of cases in the surviving records) because when it came to the crunch, few people wished to be martyrs.

I disagree with almost everything you said :)

I think our fundamental disagreement comes from how to interpret what the Bible means by "the LORD says X." You take it to mean that God actually said X, whereas I take it to mean that the author of that book supported X.

If you would like to understand my position, I would recommend reading Thom Stark's The Human Faces of God: What Scripture Reveals When It Gets God Wrong (and Why Inerrancy Tries to Hide It).

The first book I read during my doubt/research phase was "The Human Faces of God" by Thom Start. Really good book written by a Christian dealing with problems in inerrant and literal readings of the bible.

The story of the Old Testament is basically the story of the emergence of monotheism from polytheism: "Thou shalt have no other gods before Me." See The Human Faces of God by Thom Stark. The story of the New Testament is basically the story of the emergence of Christianity from Judaism. But the story of Jesus is far more than just the story of the emergence of Christianity. The story of Jesus is also the story of radical non violent rebellion, as well as the story of the sacrificial scapegoating mechanism that is at the core of human culture.

That is probably a lot to digest so some places to begin are, Jesus and Nonviolence: A Third Way, by Walter Wink and Violence and the Sacred by René Girard.

There is also an excellent synthesis of these two works The Jesus Driven Life: Reconnecting Humanity With Jesus by Michael Hardin.

Upvote for you - Misquoting Jesus is probably the most interesting, lucid, and clear Biblical commentary I've ever picked up. I'd also recommend Thom Stark's The Human Faces of God , which takes a similarly unabashed approach to exegesis, but with a focus on the Old Testament.

Misrepresented or misinterpreted.

There is no timeline where a Biblical exodus makes sense.

This book could use a slight update to encompass findings from the last 15 years, but it's a very solid read on the various pieces of evidence for and against the Exodus. https://www.amazon.com/Bible-Unearthed-Archaeologys-Vision-Ancient-ebook/dp/B000FBJG86 I recommend you give it a read - very well written and fascinating. And it makes an extremely strong case, one accepted by almost all archaeologists, that the Exodus, as written, did not occur.

I read the bible with the aid of a commentary (The New Jerome Biblical Commentary), and a Bible Dictionary (HarperCollins Bible Dictionary). It slowed the pace a bit, but I got a lot out of it. I also had some good intros to the New Testament (An Introduction to the New Testament by Raymond Brown and The New Testament: A Historical Introduction to the Early Christian Writings by Bart Ehrman).

Some other interesting study aids:

• Who Wrote the Bible? by Richard Friedman - for an overview on the Documentary Hypothesis of the Pentateuch.
  
  
• Misquoting Jesus by Bart Ehrman - goes over the difficulty of rebuilding the original words of the authors of the bible.
  
  Good Luck.

Wut?

Shows up for Kindle for me..

I found it on amazon, here ya go:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00A9ET54E/ref=oh_aui_d_detailpage_o00_?ie=UTF8&psc=1

I just finished The Zealot which was a fascinating look at who the historical Jesus was. The author Reza Aslan has been studying the New Testament for about 20 years and he basically laid out a timeline for the Gospels as Mark in 70, Luke/Matthew around 90, and John between 100-120.

Interestingly enough for me, was that 1 Thessalonians was the first written work that ends up in the New Testament, and that the order of the books in the New Testament are not chronological (as I would have thought). For example, the Book of Acts is usually attributed to the writer of Luke, who was a follower (Aslan calls him a sycophant at one point) of Paul, and so everything in Acts is basically to build the bridge between the Gospels and Paul's letters, even though James, Peter, and John were upset with Paul for how he talked about Mosaic Law.

Sorry, got sidetracked.

When aspects of the Gospels are viewed from a chronological viewpoint, there appears to be a changing narrative in place. Mark talks nothing really of the birth or resurrection, and makes fleeting mention of Jesus before Pilate, but by the time you get to John, Pilate is basically pleading with the Jews to not kill Jesus (this is an overstatement on my part, but you get the idea).

What surprised me as I read this book was that even though there are errors or more fictional aspects of the Gospels (from a historic viewpoint, i.e. things that are not validated from a second source, like Jesus being born in Bethlehem or Herod killing all the first born) there were things that are more or less proven by other historical writing. For one, that Jesus healed people and drove out demons. It was common place for healers and exorcists to make the rounds during this time, and it was easy for someone to accuse them of using magic or being a magician (for which they would be killed for breaking Old Testament law), yet no one ever tried that with Jesus. He heals a blind man, and none of his "opponents" ever cried "magician!".

Oh well, now I'm just rambling. But I do encourage your friend to pick up the Zealot and look through it if he's interested in how the New Testament can be viewed historically.

Ask him if he has read the book of mammon:

http://www.amazon.com/The-Book-Mammon-Corporation-Mormons/dp/1451553706

he goes into depth considering the quad and how it related to sales being the reason for campaigns pushing certain purchases.

Wait, so Jeezus himself accepts the money from your very hand? Bull. Shit. You give it to The Corporation of the President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. They invest your money and build a shopping mall with it. That is the truth. Source: The Book of Mammon

> To me the documentary and information on the flavius family of Rome is incredible. Does it require faith to believe that a Roman family concocted and created a religion to control all peoples?

Ew, no, don't buy into that bizarre theory. It has been debunked.

The origins of the Jewish religion[s] came from many different sources, & the belief in a "messiah" was most definitely not a Roman conspiracy. I followed that trail for a while, until the conspiracy theory aspect got too thick.

In fact, I don't know where you got the Roman conspiracy from my mention of Mark S. Smith. That Roman conspiracy theory was authored by Joseph Atwill:

https://www.amazon.com/Caesars-Messiah-Conspiracy-Flavian-Signature/dp/1461096405

I do NOT recommend Atwill's writings - unless you're looking for amusing conspiracy fiction.

Can confirm, atheist here who FUCKING LOVES CHRISTMAS. People have celebrated during that time of year before the Romans invented Jesus and they'll continue to celebrate long after humans are all too smart to fall for religion.

http://www.amazon.com/The-Genesis-Science-Scientific-Revolution/dp/1596981555/bedeslibrary

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Gods-Philosophers-Medieval-Foundations-Science/dp/1848311508/

These may be available through your library..

I'm not sure why you're interested in theology per se when your question is epistemic, generally in the domain of philosophy of religion. Given the nature of your question, though, it seems you're looking for something that deals with preliminaries. In this case, I'd recommend Swinburne's The Coherence of Theism.

>This book investigates what it means, and whether it is coherent, to say that there is a God. The author concludes that, despite philosophical objections, the claims which religious believers make about God are generally coherent; and that although some important claims are coherent only if the words by which they are expressed are being used in stretched or analogical senses, this is in fact the way in which theologians have usually claimed they are being used.

If you're interested in the broader impact theology has had on the world, I'd recommend something like Hannam's The Genesis of Science: How the Christian Middle Ages Launched the Scientific Revolution. But that only deals with science.

Thank you for your response.

> so we can ask how has faith in superior divine entities recently helped us in curing bone cancer

Well, the answer is a lot. We can just look at one example, St. Jude's Hospital which was started by Danny Thomas, a Maronite Catholic. I'll quote the rest from Wikipedia here... " When his first child was about to be born, he attended Mass in Detroit and put his last $7.00 in the offering bin. He prayed to St. Jude Thaddeus for a means to provide for his family, and about a week later, he obtained a gig that paid 10 times what he had put in the offering bin. After that time, Thomas believed in the power of prayer. He promised St. Jude Thaddeus that if the saint made him successful, he would one day build him a shrine. Years later, Thomas became an extremely successful comedian and built St. Jude Children's Research Hospital as a shrine to St. Jude Thaddeus to honor his promise." The institute, founded by a Christian because of Christianity has produced over 4,000 scholarly articles related specifically to Osteosarcoma.

Unfortunately, the anecdotes of Galileo and and a few others have shrouded the reality that "the ongoing clash of creationism with evolution obscures the fact that Christianity has actually had a far more positive role to play in the history of science than commonly believed." nature.com

• Until the French Revolution, the Catholic Church was the leading sponsor of scientific research. Starting in the Middle Ages, it paid for priests, monks and friars to study at the universities. The church even insisted that science and mathematics should be a compulsory part of the syllabus.
  
  
• By the seventeenth century, the Jesuit order had become the leading scientific organisation in Europe, publishing thousands of papers and spreading new discoveries around the world.
  
  
• It was faith that led Copernicus to reject the ugly Ptolemaic universe; that drove Johannes Kepler to discover the constitution of the solar system; and that convinced James Clerk Maxwell he could reduce electromagnetism to a set of equations so elegant they take the breathe away
  
  These days, the real discord between faith and science are just wedge issues - evolution and fetal stem cell research. Christians don't stand in the way of science in general, they oppose certain studies that they consider to be profoundly immoral (belief that embryos deserve human rights) or false (some forms of neo-darwinian synthesis). Given the small fraction of the sciences that this actually represents, it hardly makes the case that there is a deep divide between the two, or that Christianity is holding back science.
  
  If you are interested, I highly recommend you take a look at a few books...
  
  > Where the Conflict Really Lies: Science, Religion and Naturalism by Dr. Alvin Plantinga formerly of Notre Dame
  
  > Mind & Cosmos: Why the Materialist Neo-Darwinian Conception of Nature is Almost Certainly False by renowned atheist philosopher Dr. Thomas Nagel
  
  > The Genesis of Science by Dr. James Hannam
  
  There are plenty more, of course. But it leads to a striking question - who are more mislead, the Christians who are taught that evolution is false, or the Western world that is taught that the Church is an enemy of science?

This book is good and should for the basis of an informed response. Or you could go around recommending it to people.

Sorry--if I think of anything more straightforward I'll stick it on here. In the meantime, here's a book that claims to show how science arose from Christianity. I haven't read it but it looks interesting.

This is not an ELI5 because a good answer involves a thorough understanding of 1. the history of philosophy of science, and 2 socioeconomic history, and 3. the history of Christian doctrine.
So, one must have a firm foundation in a lot of philosophy, science, socioeconomics, Christian doctrine and the history of all of them in order to be really grasp it.

The best ELI5 would actually sound like inane Christian propaganda, But I'll try to simplify without being reductionistic.


The basic answer is this: The industrial revolution was a consequence of the progress of philosophy in Europe which eventually produced the scientific outlook, and this process was inextricably related to, even based on both Christianity's social influence, and Christianity place in the mind of the major thinkers. Isaac Newton was a Biblical scholar and a spiritual mystic. Gallileo remained a devoted christian till his dying day, and a staggering number of other early scientists did their work not as a rebellion against religion, but as a fulfillment of their religion.

Medieval, Renaissance and later Western Christian thinkers and their dialogue with intelligent and influential dissenters is what brought about the scientific outlook which fed the needs of the industrial revolution, which was in fact occurring at the same time as the Enlightenment.

Christianity's philosophy of God and the nature of our place in it produced the scientific outlook in a way which ancient grecco-roman philosophy simply couldn't. (Yes, many non-christian's adopted it, and even used it against them, but that doesn't change the fact that only Christianity produced science.) The industrial revolution needed that scientific outlook in order to fully happen.

I have a good base in the history of European philosophy and religious history, which means I can tell you how the scientific outlook came about. I don't have as much of a background in the specific socioeconomic situations in Europe which made up the industrial revolution itself, so others will have to answer that.

source: mostly http://amzn.com/1596981555 but other things learned in my Religious studies classes.

You're very late to the party. Biblical scholars wrote whole books on the inerrancy of the Bible (The Human Faces of God), the problems with translation, errors, alterations, etc. (Hector Avalos, Bart Ehrman, ...)

Yo everyone's in this thread trying to justify the un-justifiable.

The Bible has some fucked up stuff. And we have a long history of trying to deal with these passages.

I recommend Thom Stark's The Human Faces of God for a quick overview of different interpretive techniques that have been used through the ages to deal with passages like these.

He reaches a conclusion that I'm not sure I agree with, but is worth considering: that these so-called "problem scriptures" are part of our canon because they are counter-examples. They show that being God's special people doesn't save you from being terrible. That we're all deeply entrenched in sin and need our savior desperately.

"The Bible Unearthed" talks about the gates - they're pretty much disproven and discussed at some length if I remember correctly. No trace of his giant stables and houses etc and he isn't mentioned by other cultures living and trading nearby.


http://www.amazon.com/Bible-Unearthed-Archaeologys-Vision-Ancient-ebook/dp/B000FBJG86/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1416876532&sr=1-1&keywords=the+bible+unearthed

The book The Bible Unearthed is a good source for what is the likely reality behind the Old Testament.

Bart Ehrman's books are good for understanding the reality behind the New Testament. He's a nonbeliever Bible scholar and historian who studies that time and place.

So am I. What a coincidence!


What Did the Biblical Writers Know and When Did They Know It?: What Archeology Can Tell Us About the Reality of Ancient Israel https://www.amazon.com/dp/B001G0O3DI/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_5F-UBbG236X4E


Daily Life in Biblical Times (Archaeology and Biblical Studies) (Archaeology & Biblical Studies) https://www.amazon.com/dp/1589830423/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_4v-UBb7HWYXCB

Etched in Stone: Archeological Discoveries That Prove the Bible https://www.amazon.com/dp/1944229795/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_dy-UBbYB3WT5E


Next is Prof. Finkelstein, a representative of the “minimalist” approach. He has many followers as do his academic opponents:

The Bible Unearthed: Archaeology's New Vision of Ancient Israel and the Origin of Sacred Texts https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000FBJG86/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_8I-UBbY6KVZ34


Edit: in my (subjective) opinion, much of the religious beliefs and worship followed the ruling empires of the day. Israelites drew much from Mesopotamian cultures (Babylonian, Assyrian, Persian, Sumerian). Next, they modified those beliefs and practices until it became “their” tribal religion.... Today we lump up Israel’s rich history as “ancient”, but it went trough very distinct phases.

> suspend disbelief

I shouldn't have to do this in order to believe in something that is real. It's like asking you to suspend your disbelief that water turns to wood.

>It is only because you come at the Bible with the circular reasoning that flawed humans came up with it that you therefore assume the information conveyed is primitive and not timeless truth.

Some of the information is somewhat true. The reason that some of it still applies today is that human psychology has changed little in the past 2,000 years. Things that were wrong 2,000 years ago are still wrong today, stealing, indescrimate killing, etc.

As for the Bible, perhaps there is a version one that will settle all debate, but as it stands right now through the scholarly scrutiny of it, we've found that the Bible has been changed, edited, things have been left out or put into it. Some of these changes were innocent scribe mistakes, but others weren't. I suggest reading Misquoting Jesus by Bart Ehrman for a layman's look at contexual critism of the Bible.

>Such as the earth is the center of the universe... I don't think the Bible states that.

No, but as with any religious text it's open to interpretation and there are verses that talk about the circle of the Earth and how it shall not be moved and how it has corners that could be taken and misconstrued to mean just that.

Reading Joshua 10:13 (And the sun STOOD STILL, and the moon stayed...So the sun STOOD STILL in the midst of heaven, and HASTED NOT TO GO DOWN about a whole day. ), those back in that day might have come to the conclusion that the Sun moved around the Earth otherwise how could the Sun just stay in the sky and not move. This is where our human intuition breaks down. There are many things that appear to be true and feel psychologically true, but aren't. This is how it looked to the ancient people of that time. It was what they were comfortable knowing. It made them feel special. God's creation at the center where it should be. Later, though we found this to be wrong.

So, why not from the beginning state these things? Why not say that the Earth revolves around the Sun and is a spherical ellipse? Why not explain that insects have six legs and not four (Leviticus 11:20)?

These things show a primitive understanding of the world and cosmology not an awe-inspiring truth. But then perhaps this wasn't what God had in mind? Maybe he didn't care for us to know that the Earth is round and not the center of the solar system or that insects have six and not four legs?

> I don't think the Bible in it's current form was heavily modified - at least not intentionally

Misquoting jesus, an eye-opening book.

Part of the problem may be that people wrongly think atheists just go around saying "religion is bad" over and over, like a broken record. It's a bit more nuanced than that. Sam Harris for example, though he has been accused of just being anti-religious, has openly said that religion is not the problem, and even fundamentalism isn't the problem. The more extreme Jains get, he points out, the less you have to worry about them. He addresses specific beliefs, which he feels that Islam has a disproportionate burden of.

On the larger scale, yes, skeptics argue that the religious way of looking at the world is bad. But there are many arguments for that, many approaches. One person may point to the impact religiosity has on social health, while another will argue over human rights, another will argue epistemology, another will argue over the provenance of Biblical doctrine, another will use humor to point out absurdity, and then there is advocacy for a scientific worldview. This list could, of course, be a lot longer.

If someone dismisses the diversity of these approaches, I have trouble believing they're paying attention. But I'd say the same of those who think that religion is "really" about stories in which we frame our morals, and not about sincere belief in supernatural claims about Gods that really exist, really love and punish, rose from the dead, sent prophets, and so on.

Much of what the atheists get chided for is just listening to the fundamentalists and taking them seriously as to their beliefs and motivations. Then we're finger-wagged for missing the point of what religion "really" is.

Probably not the answer you're looking for, but I recommend starting by simply just getting a really good annotated study Bible or two. Those are going to give you some great jumping off points as you get to various places, and you can start digging in libraries and online and even start up a discussion from there. Thing is, the Bible isn't merely one book. It's a collection of various works by different authors from different time periods, and you'll find that to this day there's still a lot of disagreement over who wrote what and when as well as which works should be included.

I guess if I had to recommend two other books that could get you started and are easy to understand, I'd go with these two, in order:

https://www.amazon.com/Absolute-Beginners-Guide-Bible-Head/dp/0789734192/

https://www.amazon.com/Misquoting-Jesus-Story-Behind-Changed-ebook/dp/B000SEGJF8/

These are by no means a final authority on just about anything in them, and there are a ton of great books out there, but again... This is just about getting you started.

Probably an unusual choice for a Christian, but I actually like the The Skeptic's Annotated Bible as a kind of companion to my annotated study Bibles. Unfortunately, my physical copy was lost in a move. It's a little condescending at times, in my opinion, but it's useful in giving an outside perspective, and I love that some of the notes give me something else to look into. For anyone who has fundamentalist views, this is of course going to be problematic, but I'm obviously not a fundamentalist.

Some of the weird religious and free love themes made more sense once learning that Heinlein was a good friend of L. Ron Hubbard. While Hubbard was developing Scientology, he apparently communicated regularly with Heinlein, who seemed to find his writings at least intriguing. Source: Going Clear by Lawrence Wright. Absolutely crazy read. Every time you think "this can't get crazier", it does. All very well documented too.

I really liked the first ~half though when it was all suspense and action.

I just read Going Clear and am anxiously awaiting next year's HBO Scientology documentary based on the book. I have absolutely no desire to fund Tom Cruise and his favorite enterprise by paying to see Mission Impossible.

Yup.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00A9ET54E/ref=dp-kindle-redirect

Best biography of Hubbard himself is Bare Faced Messiah:

https://www.amazon.com/Bare-Faced-Messiah-True-Story-Hubbard-ebook/dp/B00IF9B4OO/ref=sr_1_1

Going Clear - it's about Scientology...this might be right up your alley...

Here is another great book on the subject. It was nominated for the National Book Award last year and HBO is premiering a documentary today based on the book.

Ten bucks in the Kindle store if you can't wait.

yeah... its not exactly an accurate telling of history if you take religion out of it. it would be nice if religion hadnt been the motivator it was throughout all of history, but it was. even if something is a myth, if an entire legal system is structured around it, its important to acknowledge it. that being said, the existance of a man named jesus who was crucified on a cross by order of a man named pontius pilate is pretty much accepted as fact by most scholars. you should check out this book. it helps explain how jesus went from being a guy with strong religious and political convictions, to the messiah sent by god to save mankind. your assertion that he isnt real because the bible is too much of a spiritual document completely ignores the reality that myth is often based on fact. and totally ignores the fact that the bible is only those spiritual and historical texts which were found acceptable by the roman church way after jesus' death. unfortunately, untill about 400 years ago, science and myth were the same thing.

read Reza Aslan's "Zealot" if you want to know how secular historians view Jesus of Nazareth: http://www.amazon.com/ZEALOT-Life-Times-Jesus-Nazareth-ebook/dp/B00BRUQ7ZY/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1412776508&sr=1-1&keywords=zealot

Check out the 1 star reviews on Amazon. Many are just like the interview...

Try reading the amazon reviews, it's amazing!

Holy fuck the reviews on Amazon are blowing up today, thanks to this post I am sure. You are making it really hard for me to find bad reviews to laugh at!
For the lazy http://www.amazon.com/Zealot-Times-Jesus-Nazareth-ebook/product-reviews/B00BRUQ7ZY/ref=cm_cr_pr_top_link_1?ie=UTF8&showViewpoints=0&sortBy=bySubmissionDateDescending

It's incredibly thick and academic, but I would recommend giving this book a stab. Very in-depth analysis, broken down between various extant texts showing how scriptures have been altered and the Christ myth has changed over time (e.g. the Eucharist was a later addition.) Love it love it.

>you imbecile

I can already tell this is going to be fun.

>Jesus has literally ZERO contemporary historical data.

That's not what you asked for. You asked for peer-reviewed arguments for the historical existence of Jesus, of which I said there are thousands, and to which I said you'd have a much more difficult time finding the opposite--- peer reviewed articles and books arguing that Jesus was entirely a myth.

>I’ll wait for those libraries of sources you have.

Where do you want to start?

Probably the best place for you to start is with Bart Ehrman, a leading scholar of on the development of Christianity, and he's also a popular skeptic speaker and writer. In addition to publishing he's written popular books about how many of the books of the Bible were forgeries, and how the belief that Jesus was divine developed in early Christianity, he also wrote an entire book laying out the widely accepted case that Jesus was likely a real historical person, written directly to skeptical lay people like yourself.

If you want a great introduction to the scholarly debate about the historical Jesus, you could start here or here. I also think Dale Allison's work is great critical look at some of the issues at work in the debate. There are lots of historical reconstructions of Jesus' life. Some of the more popular ones like Marcus Borg and John Dominic Crossan tend to sell books to liberal Christian audiences, so I've always thought E.P. Sanders treatment was perferable. I'll spare you the links to scholars who identify as orthodox Christians, like Luke Timothy Johnson or N.T. Wright. It sounded like you specifically wanted more scholarly sources and not popular books, so you could just look at the scholarly journal dedicated to the study of the historical Jesus. Or the Jesus Seminar. Or either of the following Introductions to the New Testament textbooks which are used in secular universities throughout the english speaking world:

Introduction to the New Testament by Mark Allen Powell

Introduction to the New Testament by Bart Ehrman

These are the ones I'm personally most familiar with. There are tons more like Geza Vermes and Amy Jill Levine I haven't read and I'm not as familiar with.

But I'm not telling you anything you wouldn't learn in any basic 101 intro to New Testament Class. The academic consensus is that regardless of what you think about him as a religious figure, it is extremely likely that there was a first century Jew named Jesus who started a faith movement that led to him being crucified. Why do scholars think this? Because by the time Paul started writing his letters 20 years later there was a growing, spreading religious movement that worship a crucified Jew named Jesus as their messiah, and given critical analysis of the texts produced by this movement, some of which are now in the New Testament, there really doesn't exist a coherent argument for the development of this movement that doesn't include the existence of a first century Jew named Jesus who was crucified.

Just bought http://www.amazon.com/Crusades-Authoritative-History-Holy-Land/dp/0060787295 myself. While not technically about Islam it's supposed to be a good read nonetheless.

Thomas Asbridge's The Crusades also covers this chapter of history quite thoroughly (relative to his coverage of the 4th and 5th Crusades). According to him, the Christians in the Levant considered the Mongols to be potential allies against the Muslims as far back as the Fifth Crusade, and the entire time Baybars was raising an army to defend against Mongol aggression the various Christian provinces in Outremer were regularly sending emissaries to the Ilkhanid court (to varying degrees of success).

To expand upon the answer about their religion, the term I've most frequently heard used to refer to Central Asian shamanism is Tengriism. I don't know hardly anything about it, but that would be a good place to start googling if you want to know more.

EDIT:

I was also under the impression that it was Ilkhan Ghazan Khan's wife (or one of them? I don't know anything about his marital status aside from him having at least one wife) that was the Nestorian Christian, and not him personally. I'll have to go back and check, but I figured I'd ask before digging back through my books. Did she convert him? Or am I getting confused with Constantine?

sigh.

Are we just going to spew sources to back up our opinions? Here's a few of mine.

http://www.amazon.com/The-Crusades-Authoritative-History-Holy/dp/0060787295

http://www.amazon.com/Crusades-Through-Arab-Eyes-Essentials/dp/0805208984/ref=pd_bxgy_14_img_3?ie=UTF8&refRID=1HKV23ZQ71QA77PH9C9E

http://www.amazon.com/Pope-Urban-IIs-Council-Piacenza/dp/0199258597/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1459174862&sr=1-1&keywords=pope+urban+ii

Sorry, I don't have any quick to digest youtube videos to show you.

there weren't christian nations in the middle east until the crusaders got there, the closest empire would have been the byzantine empire -- see http://www.amazon.com/The-Crusades-Authoritative-History-Holy/dp/0060787295

If it is just for you and your friends why not just compile it for them and give it freely through a pdf or buy the Nag Hammadi Library if you want the compilation in printed form?

https://www.amazon.com/Nag-Hammadi-Scriptures-Translation-Complete/dp/0061626007/ref=asc_df_0061626007/?tag=hyprod-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=312154640153&hvpos=1o2&hvnetw=g&hvrand=1103748380697344035&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=m&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9011016&hvtargid=pla-433814904643&psc=1

Hey, folks.

I recently learned about the Nag Hammadi library and, in particular, the Teachings of Silvanus, from the Facebook group, Stoicism Group (Stoic Philosophy) (you can read about Stoicism's influence on the Nag Hammadi library here). The Nag Hammadi library seems cheap on Amazon (at least, cheaper than I expected).

I didn't pay Gnosticism much attention because I mistook its definition, and regretfully so, because it has a relationship with asceticism. Are any of you, /r/Asceticism, familiar with it? What do you think about it? And are there any texts from the Nag Hammadi library, in particular, that you recommend?

Below is a response I received in PM from /u/Joseon1, who gave me permission to repost it here. (Joseon1 couldn't reply to me in /r/AskBibleScholars where he saw my question.) I figured I would post his helpful reply in case it helps others.

----

Hi, I can't post on /r/AskBibleScholars but I can hopefully help you with your question.

About the translations you're looking at, I'd always recommend checking the publisher. If it's independently published (e.g. via CreateSpace) avoid it, this means there has been no quality control. Most independently published translations are just reprints of public-domain versions you can read for free, in fact all the 1 Enoch editions you linked to use the 1912 translation by R. H. Charles.

I wouldn't recommend Ken Johnson's translations either. Although he has a Doctorate in Theology he seems very uncritical, bordering on gullible. For example, he believes his "Book of Jasher" is the lost book mentioned in Joshua 10:13, but it's actually a medieval rabbinic document, Sefer haYashar (Yashar was misinterpreted as the name Jasher by early modern Christians).

Your list of gnostic books is good, they're all by legitimate scholars. I'd say the Meyer edition is the most bang for your buck, it has all the gnostic documents found at Nag Hammadi, not just the gnostic gospels. Plus it has extensive introductions and helpful footnotes.

So, recommendations. I'll recommend a free digital version and a paid physical version of what you're looking for.

1 Enoch

Free: R. H. Charles

Paid: G. Nickelsburg & J. Vanderkam

Jubilees and others

Free: The Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha Vol 2

Paid: Old Testament Pseudepigrapha Vol 2

Gnostics

The Nag Hammadi documents were discovered in 1945, so most translations haven't passed into the public domain yet.

Free: Gnostic texts at sacred-texts.com

Paid: M. Meyer OR J. Robinson

> Enoch is Jewish, not Gnostic. I assume this means the Epistle of Jude is also Gnostic propaganda.

The Book of Enoch is a gnostic expansion on Genesis, it is not canon in judaism, it IS canon in Eritrean, Ethiopian, and Coptic Christianity which follows the monastic traditions of the desert fathers, St. Anthony being one of them. There was a large influence on the desert fathers from Alexandria that led to the gnostic texts of the Nag Hammadi library. You can read more about gnostic and coptic canon in this book: https://www.amazon.com/Nag-Hammadi-Scriptures-Translation-Complete/dp/0061626007/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1520559631&sr=1-1&keywords=the+nag+hammadi+scriptures&dpID=51AWQnqkKKL&preST=_SY291_BO1,204,203,200_QL40_&dpSrc=srch

> Alchemy is medieval, not Gnostic. Alchemy would require not being a Gnostic to perform since it's about matter and the whole thing about Gnosticism is escaping matter.

Alchemy is Egyptian in origin. The word Khem is an egyptian word that means "the fertile land of the Nile flood", the Arabs of the 7th century who developed the practice of alchemy that was brought back during the crusades added "Al" to the beginning of it which means "of the". So the word Alchemy specifically means "of the fertile land that the Nile floods", which is Egypt. Alchemy is an extremely ancient practice that taught us how to make beer in the fertile crescent and was developed spiritually through Egyptians. You can read more about it in this book: https://www.amazon.com/Kybalion-Hermetic-Philosophy-Ancient-Greece/dp/1603864784/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1520559579&sr=1-1&keywords=the+kybalion&dpID=51iaHGQejVL&preST=_SY291_BO1,204,203,200_QL40_&dpSrc=srch

> "Greek kabbalism" sounds like "dehydrated water." "Exclusively Jewish mysticism for goyim." This really gives your sheer ignorance away.

Greek kabbalism is the origin of Kabbalah, it specifically deals with the Pythagorean cults that developed during the origins of philosophy. The greek and hebrew alphabets developed from the pheonician alphabet, which was alphanumeric. The pythagoreans taught a system of writing that took into account the numeric values of each word to entrench writings in triadic symbolism. When rabinnic theologians discovered this in the late dark ages Kabbalism was born. You can read more about it in this book: https://www.amazon.com/Greek-Qabalah-Alphabetical-Mysticism-Numerology/dp/1578631106

I am not a gnostic though, and I'm not trying to upend Christianity. I don't know where you're getting that. I'm not saying anything terribly controversial. I'm presenting evidence and historical fact, you haven't presented anything other than attacks on my character.

I'd recommend a couple of books as starters. The most basic is The Early Church by Henry Chadwick. That gives a solid, broad overview of almost the exact time period you have in mind.

From there, you can expand your reading a bit. Jaroslav Pelikan is one of the central contemporary authorities on Christian history, and his five volume magnum opus The Christian Tradition is probably as hefty a reference as any layperson will need. Elaine Pagels' studies extrapolating on the evidence afforded by the gospels is also fascinating stuff. I'd recommend starting with The Origin of Satan. Another is Rebecca's Children: Judaism and Christianity in the Roman World by Alan Segal. The temporal scope of that one is much narrower, and it pays equal (if not more) attention to the origins of Rabbinic Judaism, but it's a strong source for understanding the initial import of Christianity.

Off the top of my head, The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. Also,
How the Irish Saved Civilization is a great read, though not about Rome.
If you're into church history, The Early Church by Chadwick and The Reformation by Macchulloch are well-written and interesting

The Penguin/Pelican History of the Church series has been a pretty standard text for a while, though they're a bit dated now. I found them very useful, although they cover such large swathes of history that they can only cover each topic very briefly. The Reformation Book covers the whole Munich thing in like one page - a topic that Dan Carlin covers in a four and a half hour podcast.

These books will give you the standard classical view of church history, and they won't give you the latest in controversial research. But they're also quite good at giving a neutral point of view.

This is book one of the series.

The Early Church by Henry Chadwick is a great brief intro to the first ~1000 years of Christianity.

I really enjoyed The Varieties of Scientific Experience. It's actually a posthumous release transcribed from a series of lectures he gave. It deals with a lot of the 'God' questions in a really straight forward, non-preach way and feels more cohesive and contains a lot more of the scientific 'wow' type stuff from Cosmos than 'Demon Haunted World' does.

I'm in the middle of reading this: The Varieties of Scientific Experience and I think it's quite relevant to r/atheism's interests. I highly (pun unintentional) recommend it.

Why do you need a god at all to have mystery? the one big man in charge thing is a human construct. There are still mysteries out there, physics, parallel universes, the true nature of reality and finding out what is REAL. Humans want to KNOW. It is better they seek out what is actually true instead of building falsehoods as truth.

Read this book:

https://www.amazon.com/Varieties-Scientific-Experience-Personal-Search/dp/0143112627

The Christian right is a brutal political dominionist force built on an authoritarian brutal god.

>I just kind of hate the idea that we are all just a bunch of bouncing neurons reacting to stimuli, that there is likely no heaven or anything after death, and that everything... juts barely or doesn't matter.

You are experiencing an existential crisis. Religious spoon-feeds meaning and purpose to its adherents. Reality doesn't give a shit about you or anything else. Is it any wonder so many people choose the safe, comforting lies of religion? It takes courage and a strong degree of self-assuredness in oneself to face an uncaring universe without a mythology to fall back on.

You could go through the large body of works by Existentialist philosophers to discover the path to defining your own meaning and purpose in life, but I'll warn you now it is not a quick, easy process. It's well worthwhile and I encourage everyone to study Existential philosophy, but if you're hurting right now, taking a shortcut peace of mind is understandable.

My recommendation is to read some of Carl Sagan's works. He kinda flips the existential question on its head. Instead of being left adrift without a purpose, he illustrates in beautiful detail just how insanely awesome the world around (and inside) us is. Sure, there's no purpose to life, but isn't it fucking amazing that I get to partake in it for the better part of a century?

Through Sagan's writings, I found that the remaining hooks Christianity had in me completely faded to nothing. Since there is no afterlife, and I only get a finite amount of time to experience life, I should make the most of what time I've got. Irrelevant shit is easier to recognize and I don't stress out over the things that don't matter or that I can't change.

As for where to start reading Sagan, there's a text called, "The Varieties of Scientific Experience: A Personal View of the Search for God," that seems like a perfect fit for your situation, but I haven't read it and can't vouch for it. My introduction to Sagan was "Dragons of Eden" followed by "Broca's Brain" and "The Demon-Haunted World." Look through his books and decide what makes sense for you.

Try this one as Pelikan traces the history of doctrine:

http://www.amazon.ca/Christian-Tradition-Development-Doctrine-Emergence/dp/0226653714/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1396036362&sr=1-2&keywords=jaroslav+pelikan

I have his full set and found it to be excellent.

I think you might be missing some of the richness and connotations of the statement "Jesus is LORD."

Is that a damnable offense? I find it hard to believe that you can deny Christ's divinity and actually place your faith in God, so I'd lean towards yes, especially given the history and councils regarding the subject, but it's far from a certainty.

If you're interested in a more academic analysis of how the concept of the trinity came to be, this book is kind of the academic standard for the history of early theology (or so I'm told) and I found it very enlightening.

People in this sub like to make this such a cut and dry topic, but it was anything but for the first few hundred years of Christianity and wasn't even completely settled by Nicea.

I can recommend The Christian Tadition by Jaroslav Pelikan in five volumes. There are lots of different aspects to religion you might be interested in. This one discusses the development of doctrine, in great detail.

>history seems to go against Christianity

What do you mean?

I've read the books and I think they're overall pretty good, though a bit dated. If you're looking for a multi-volume series on the history of Christianity, I'd read Jaroslav Pelikan's The History of the Development of Doctrine series - Vol. I here.

You should have hit Joe Rogan with some knowledge from Atheist Delusions: The Christian Revolution and Its Fashionable Enemies. I was cheering for you there, but it is a tough topic if you aren't fully ready for battle.

Have you since decided to keep religion a bit closer to home? It's best not to cast pearls before swine after all.

I don't see any need to 'prove' anything. My position is that God is not susceptible to proof and that religion actually teaches this.

Atheists might deny God but asking for proof is intellectually dishonest. It's like if I play Baseball and you play Football and I keep asking you to prove Football exists by showing me a Footballer getting a Home Run.

In essence they are trying to force their rules on to you rather than trying to disprove your position by your own rules - which is what they should do if they are rational. No-one would ever construct a scientific model that tried to prove something by rules that don't apply to it.

Anyway, I digress. I never read atheist books any more as I find them insulting to my intelligence but I do read a lot of theology. Actually, most problems about God have been far better addressed by theologians than atheists.

David Bentley Hart is good on Atheist 'thought'. This is a good one:

Bart Erhman is good on alternate readings of Christian scripture.

This is good too - a discussion on how atheists see the world as material 'things' and assume God does not exist because He is not material. That's the whole point though... God is NO THING

If you want a logical proof though The Kalam Cosmological Argument is probably the nearest to it and I think no atheist really wants to discuss this.

It's an early Islamic 'proof' of God which has been take up by theologian William Lane Craig. He actually has repeatedly asked Dawkins for a public debate on this but Dawkins continually refuses.

The argument is simple

• Whatever begins to exist has a cause;
  
• The universe began to exist;
  
• therefore: the universe has a cause
  
  To falsify it the atheist would need to point to one example of an existent thing that has no cause (which actually would be God)
  
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kalam_cosmological_argument
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

I personally wouldn't recommend C.S. Lewis' Mere Christianity, to be honest. He does a good job of arguing within Christianity, but his arguments for Christianity are rather lacking.

If you want a really good response to The God Delusion, I have two recommendations. The first is a book review by Terry Eagleton, who is kind of an atheist, as I understand it. It's a relatively quick read, but it's a fantastic apology for Christianity, I think, plus it highlights Dawkins' weaker points.

My other recommendation is the book Atheist Delusions by David Bentley Hart. He doesn't spend much time on Dawkins in particular, but spends the entirety of the book critiquing New Atheist scholarship (particularly their historical scholarship, as he is primarily an historian). Hart is a bit more conservative than most Christians you'll find on reddit (or most you'll find with a Ph.d, I think), but not in the same way you're thinking, which is hard to explain unless you've read him. He can be a bit vitriolic, but no more than Dawkins ever was.

Atheist Delusions by David Bentley Hart is really awesome. It doesn't spend much time on much of the New Atheist arguments, because honestly they don't take very long to refute. But he does spend a lot of time talking about the historical impact of Christianity, and dispelling historical myths about Christianity and the sciences/thought in general. It's also a hilarious read, Hart is a great polemicist. Only read if you can stomach stuff like, "The rather petulant subtitle that Christopher Hitchens has given his (rather petulantly titled) god is Not Great is How Religion Poisons Everything. Naturally one would not expect him to have squandered any greater labor of thought on the dust jacket of his book than on the disturbingly bewildered text that careens so drunkenly across its pages - reeling up against a missed logical connection here, steading itself against a historical error there, stumbling everywhere all over those damned conceptual confusions littering the carpet - but one does still have to wonder how he expects any reflective reader to interpret such a phrase. Does he really mean precisely everything?"

Terry Eagleton's Reason, Faith, and Revolution is also really good. It's a cheat for me to mention him, since he's not a Christian but a marxist; he does a terrific job of showing how Dawkins and Hitchens (what he calls, Ditchkins) make their argument on the cheap, however. In the end, he concludes that the problem Ditchkins has is that Christianity is far too radical for them. And that the Church has strayed from its radical roots. So it happens to be a good pro and anti-Christian work. Since I gave you an excerpt of Atheist Delusions, I may as well give you one from Reason, Faith, and Revolution: "With dreary predictability, Daniel C. Dennett defines religions at the beginning of his Breaking the Spell as “social systems whose participants avow belief in a supernatural agent or agents whose approval is to be sought,” which as far as Christianity goes is rather like beginning a history of the potato by defining it as a rare species of rattlesnake. Predictably, Dennett’s image of God is a Satanic one. He also commits the Ditchkins-like blunder of believing that religion is a botched attempt to explain the world, which is like seeing ballet as a botched attempt to run for a bus."

Judging by your list, I'd say you should check this out.

Forgive the Title, Publishers love a provocative title, but this book is outstanding as it won the Ramsey Prize in 2011

Athiest Delusions by David Bentley Hart

Well we know by 64 AD, that Christians were in Rome. Maybe a 100+ at the time.
By late 200 AD, Diocletian was persecuting Christians in all parts of the Empire. So the movement had spread far and wide over the 150+ years. I read that by Constantine, the Empire consisted of around 25% Christians. They had risen in the ranks of Imperial administration and even Constantine's Mom was a Christian. (Helen).

I don't think they held a majority in any given part of the Empire.......but were a presence that was large enough to justify wide spread persecution across the Empire. I would probably guess that the Greek and North African side of the Empire had the largest concentration.

This was a decent read on the conversion of the Empire from Paganism to Christianity: https://www.amazon.com/Darkening-Age-Christian-Destruction-Classical/dp/0544800885

Something to think about.

Almost exactly 1,700 years ago, the Roman Emperor of Britain & Gaul (France), Flavius Valerius Constantinus, is said to have had a vision while on the road with his army – of a cross over the sun, and next to it the words “in this sign conquer” (in hoc signo vinces). In a different version, a writer of the time says this came to Constantinus in a dream. No one is sure what the sign referred to in the dream/vision was, but it was a Christian symbol of the time – probably not the cross we are all quite familiar with today.

The very next day, at the Battle of the Milvian Bridge, Constantinus, and his forces routed the army of Roman Emperor Maxentius and the gates of Rome, the seat of the Roman Empire, were laid open to him. Constantinus, better known as Constantine the Great, became a Christian as a result of that vision or dream. It came to be seen as a capstone moment in world history.

The earliest version of the battle had no mention of a vision or a dream. But this was the 4th century CE, and such things as visions and dreams were much more saleable to the general public then. It was no doubt also convenient for Christian history-writers in the centuries after, as they worked to impose on diverse peoples monotheistic absolutism across what is now Europe, West Asia, and Northern Africa.

Constantine’s victory on Oct 28, 312 CE was a landmark moment in history. It resulted in the complete and utter destruction of the European civilization of that time over the following centuries. The period roughly between the 5th and the 11th century used to be known as the Dark Ages of Europe. That usage has fallen out of fashion of late, for obvious reasons. It is a story of incredible violence, and of the use of law to crush all existing forms of worship, rituals, customs and practices – and also in some cases the digested transformation of some of these rituals and customs.

To make matters worse for the old gods of Europe and Western Asia, in the early 7th century, a new monotheistic religion erupted out of Arabia: Islam – which had been forged on the caravan routes between Arabia and the Levant, where Christianity was born. This set the stage for a clash of absolutism, which persists to this day. But, caught in the crossfire, the polytheists of the area were defenseless. Their practices were rendered illegal and often the penalty of non-conversion was sub-citizen status or death. The legislative pen and the divine sword were used in the service of the expanding monotheisms.

In any case, you will be hard pressed to find a temple to Apollo or any of the Greco-Roman gods built in the last 15 centuries, anywhere in the regions where the Greco-Roman and the Judaic civilizations used to thrive. The Jewish people, monotheists themselves and in many ways the source of both Christianity and Islam, have just about managed to cling on, and are still on an existential cliff-hanger. Their predicament, in this writer’s view, can be whittled down to a single predominant factor: The Jews did not actively proselytize and try to increase their numbers.

Edicts and laws are much more effective than violence in forcing change on a people because they carry the implicit threat of violence by the state. And that violence is regarded by the general public as worthy, exemplary and legitimate – because it has a state behind it.

That is how Christianity spread through Europe after Constantine, through edicts and laws which steadily and incrementally legitimized violence by the state against all who believed in other gods. (For more detail, read this book, the latest in a small list – The Darkening Age, by Catherine Nixey)

While everyone knows about the persecution of Christians between 200-400 CE (mainly), few know about the violent suppression of the “pagan” gods in the 15 or so centuries thereafter. This is why no one even bothers to ask “why were no temples to Apollo, Jupiter, or Athena built in the last millennium?” Faiths that sustained civilizations have been rendered museum memories, often with their heads, hands, noses chopped off. Sounds familiar? And while we, along with the world, mourn at the fiery collapse of the Church of Notre Dame in Paris, a monumentally beautiful edifice, let us also remember that underneath it was a temple to many gods, including Jupiter, Mercury, Castor and Pollux, and Vulcan, the old Roman god of fire.

The scrubbing out of civilizations was not just in Europe, but in the Americas, in Australia, Africa and parts of Asia. Wounds of the Goan Inquisition are still raw, and the ancient temples converted to churches may be far between, but not few. The impulse of the Abrahamic faith systems to gain access to legislative power is powerful, pragmatic and persistent. At the time of Constantine, Christianity was no more than 10% of the total population. It was political power, followed by edicts, laws and subtle amendments over decades that changed the world.

​

TLDR:- While we, along with the world, mourn at the fiery collapse of the Church of Notre Dame in Paris, a monumentally beautiful edifice, let us also remember that underneath it was a temple to many gods, including Jupiter, Mercury, Castor and Pollux, and Vulcan, the old Roman god of fire.

​

PS:- I copied it from somewhere and pasted it here as is to make sure I do not distort the facts.

A link to the Wiki page on John Boswell, the Yale historian who wrote a book about same-sex unions in the church. link

his book

When I hear that argument from people, religious or not, I bring up the eight types of marriage in the bible, none of which match the legal marriage of today:

http://www.religioustolerance.org/mar_bibl0.htm

My point isn't about the bible as such, but rather, that the societal definition of marriage has changed. Indeed, my next point is that in 1900 a marriage was basically the taking of one woman by one man of the same race and religion from her father as (basically) property. If I want to be really picky about it, I refer to this book:

http://www.amazon.com/Same-Sex-Unions-Premodern-Europe-Boswell/dp/0679751645/

...which establishes plainly that marriage had basically no definite definition until about 1300 (when the spanish inquisition got involved), but that it was definitely a property transaction, not an institution of "love" or "family".

And for your dad personally, I'd tell him that if society defined marriage, society can re-define marriage, and then I'd point out the demographics that establish that that is going to happen:

http://www.gaymarriageresearch.com/gay-marriage-facts-statistics/

...so he might as well start trying to get used to the idea.

The true history of matrimonial union? Hah. You seem to think that marriage today is the same as it was back when. It wasn’t. Go dig through some history books. Check out Same Sex Unions in Pre-Modern Europe.

https://www.amazon.ca/dp/0679751645?slotNum=0&ascsubtag=9b7b5b7846620fed206cc858897736fd2a13e639&linkCode=g12&imprToken=09lB66.uks-LapfmRHrhug&creativeASIN=0679751645&tag=gawker0a-20

As to the mind, you appear to have a mystical viewpoint here, so we are talking entirely different languages, and it isn’t the mystical viewpoint I’m familiar with.

There are about twenty human species that we know about including our own. Some of the more well known ones are:

Homo Sapiens (us) ⭐️
Homo Neanderthal ⭐️
Homo Denisovan (there are three Denisovan species but we know little about them) ⭐️
Homo Naledi
Homo Floresiensis
Homo Erectus
Homo Habilis
Homo Ergaster
Homo Heidelbergensis
Homo Antecessor

Those are the ones I can remember off the top of my head. The ones with stars we know are/were sentient, the others we don’t have enough information on to know. Yet.

The brain structure of LGBTQ people is different. Brain scans clearly show it.


https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn20032-transsexual-differences-caught-on-brain-scan/

https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn14146-gay-brains-structured-like-those-of-the-opposite-sex/

Rape was legal, in fact it was required. So was killing all the men and male children. Go read the Old Testament on the invasion of Canaan.

> Gay Marriage for example, the bible says to love everyone but gay marriage is the most disgraced thing around churches now.

And yet there's this book that has evidence of pre-modern acceptance of gay unions:

Same Sex Unions in Pre-Modern Europe

A controversial read, depending on your POV, so maybe not for everyone.

I'm a nonbeliever, and even when I was I knew the bible was not intended to be taken literally (like snakes and virgin births). A lot of it is allegorical to illustrate points, and some of it is just the mythology and oral history of a middle-eastern tribe that was eventually written down. Personally, I take issue with the misogyny rampant throughout (not terribly fond of Augustine et.al.). And yet I don't dismiss the good parts. If you believe in god, then you must have been given your brains for a reason. Use them.

> Actually, you are wrong and ahistorical. Before "traditional marriage", women were the dominate in relationships,

You're just going farther back than I am. I don't disagree that even earlier social constructs were based around a system of matriarchy. However, the current construct of marriage is based around the transfer of property from one man to another man as a business contract. Even in "The Iliad" we have a version of marriage where it acceptable and desireable for a man to take concubines (female POWs whose function is to be raped).

This earlier version of marriage I would certainly be interested to learn more about, but I'm low on actual real references to the actual ceremonies and the type of agreements therein.

> Many early tribes worshiped women and were even ruled by them.

True, but we don't have any recordings of their ceremonies or the parameters of the relationship therein. For example, the ancient Yamato people were allegedly originally a Matriarchy before the Koreans came and messed things up by introducing Confucianism. What we don't have is an understanding of marriage during this time as it would have been understood by them, so mostly we can only speculate.

I have even seen documentaries on current tribes where things are communal.

I do rather like John Boswell in Christianity Homosexuality and Social Tolerance and Same Sex Unions in Premodern Europe, the latter giving an idea of more variety.

You also get an upgoat from me.

Have you ever been to a same sex ceremony? It's can be as much of a God Blessed Holy Union as any other. To deny that is arrogant pride and the 'b' word. And you would place yourself in judgement of others as if you were the creator.

We don't need any laws to protect Churches. These are just new scapegoats to find ways to discriminate against people. Which is wrong.

As I have stated twice already, the USA the state and Church are separate. They became so when we separated from the Monarchy and The Church.

I could sue you for wearing pink shorts. Doesn't mean I would win and not be forced to pay your legal fees.

You don't know your Torah because some of the couples are not sex specific and may be same sex couples. It wasn't important enough to specify.

King David wrote some very romantic psalms to men. That you refuse to acknowledge this or deny it is revealing of your lack of historical awareness or underlying agenda. But at least you understand he slept around with a whole bunch of women. So when modern Christians try to say 'traditional 1 man 1 woman marriage' you know and acknowledge they are lying.

Look, it's been fun, but you really don't seem to have enough historical context to understand and you seem to want to just find excuses to discriminate against people.

Allow me to recommend a book to study Same Sex Marriage in Pre Modern Europe. Link: http://www.amazon.com/Same-Sex-Unions-Premodern-Europe-Boswell/dp/0679751645

Revealing: "They also had marriage with animals and objects." Interestingly you do not call the same sex marriages I cited as, marriage, but you do when it suits your agenda to objects and animals.

"...animals and object" Oh, you are one of those. Why didn't you just say so? It amazes me someone could be on the internet, on reddit, exposed to all this knowledge and different experiences and still be one of those. But hey, we probably have some flat earthers here too.

If you want to be a bigot, just be one. But don't try to hide it under a veil of hunt and pick religions and a lack of understanding of history, nature, tradition, reason, compassion and the human condition.

Yes, very familiar but Ehrman will admit, nothing of what hes written(atleast with regards to textual criticism which is what I know him for) is anything new to scholars in the field. Though I'm far from his level I did study textual criticism.

Edit. https://www.amazon.com/King-James-Only-Controversy-Translations/dp/0764206052 It was written before Ehrman wrote and focused on a different controversy but it tackles several issues Erhman has brought up as they are brought up by people against 'modern' translations. The two (Dr. White and Dr. Erhman) have also debated https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=moHInA9fAsI (part 1) and a more complete defense from Dr. White (edit, put the wrong link here initially) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LuiayuxWwuI if your curious about that side of the argument.

I admit Dr. White's credentials can be called into question (went to a small Christian school, compared to modern universities it looks kinda sketchy) but he has one of the more understandable and accurate presentations on the topic.

http://www.amazon.com/Zealot-Life-Times-Jesus-Nazareth/dp/0812981480/

Not exactly a conspiracy nut

> Feel free to present some.

Again, fair point! There's a couple of books that are a good introduction to the topic.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/0062204602

http://www.amazon.com/Zealot-Life-Times-Jesus-Nazareth/dp/0812981480

These are meant for non-specialists, but they do a decent job of summarizing the last 30 years or so. If you're interested in a more in-depth study, both books contain a large number of excellent references.

Just curious, did you grow up in a religious household? Growing up in a Catholic household, I was constantly exposed to the religion but never asked questions. I went down this path of curiosity on Christianity a few years ago and read a few books and watched a few documentaries. The fact is, there is very little data on the historical Jesus, so you'll have to come to your own conclusions. A few things that helped me come to my conclusion:

An interesting free Yale open course that deals with the historical context of the New Testament -

http://oyc.yale.edu/religious-studies/rlst-152

An introduction to the "banned" books of the bible. One could suggest that these were influenced by other religions of the east, and did not fit the narrative of the current version of the Bible -

http://www.amazon.com/The-Gnostic-Gospels-Elaine-Pagels/dp/0679724532

One authors interpretation of what Jesus probably was given the historical context and the political strife of that time -

http://www.amazon.com/Zealot-Life-Times-Jesus-Nazareth/dp/0812981480/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1449711190&sr=1-1&keywords=zealot

Good luck!

Probably, but not as the person you know from the Bible. Read Zealot by reza aslan https://www.amazon.com/dp/0812981480/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_mNGgybAWNHCWC

He looks at the person Jesus from a purely historical perspective.

Its not religious either it's more of an academic book.

Possibly. One of the best books on the subject (although I'm sure strict Christians will call me a "heathen" or whatever...especially his other "major" book preached a lot about Islam, but he's still a great religious scholar) is Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth by Reza Aslan. The book focuses a bit too much on "trivial" details of the region but the pertinent details of "Jesus of Nazareth" are really interesting.

Here is the mobile version of your link

That's fair. I can't say I believe in the Christianity I was raised in either. I was raised in a more fundamentalist atmosphere and have become more of an academic Christian.

I'm not sure if I think morality is relative, but I am pretty sure our understanding of it is relative. Maybe there is some morality that exists outside of context, but once we start applying it wholesale everything gets hazier. Nothing can be applied wholesale; we can only understand things in context because we only exist in context. But this may be my love for postmodern philosophy talking.

If you are still interested in studying the Bible, I would encourage looking at modern academic commentaries/articles (getting suggestions from a professor or pastor that you trust might be helpful) as well as exploring other more foreign Christian theologies, such as Eastern Orthodoxy. Some places to start might be a basic book on exegesis such as The Bible Doesn't Have to Be Hard to Read and good article on the JEDP theory. On the subject of Eastern Orthodoxy, some good accessible books are The Orthodox Way and For the Life of the World.

Here are three books I absolutely love for dipping your feet into Christian theology:

• For the Life of the World by Alexander Schmemman ($2.99 on kindle)
  
  
• [Acquiring the Mind of Christ] (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0990502996) by Sergius Boyer
  
  
• [The Mountain of Silence] (https://www.amazon.com/Mountain-Silence-Search-Orthodox-Spirituality/dp/0385500920) by Kyriacos C. Markides

My favorite edition of the DL: here

Some outside references: For the Life of the World and this pdf that details all of the biblical references in the Liturgy.

Here are a few suggestions

https://www.amazon.com/Life-World-Sacraments-Orthodoxy/dp/0913836087

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0281070989/ref=ox_sc_act_image_4?smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER&psc=1

https://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Liturgical-Theology-Alexander-Schmemann/dp/0913836184/ref=mp_s_a_1_3?keywords=alexander+schmemann&qid=1570773874&sprefix=akexander+schm&sr=8-3

https://www.amazon.com/Orthodox-Worship-Living-Continuity-Synagogue/dp/1944967540/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?keywords=Orthodox+worship&qid=1570774074&sr=8-1

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0881410829/ref=ox_sc_act_image_6?smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER&psc=1

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/988785154X/ref=ox_sc_act_image_5?smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER&psc=1

https://www.amazon.com/Hymn-of-Entry-Liturgy-and-Life-in-the-Orthodox-Church-Contemporary-Greek-Theologians-Series-No-1/dp/0881410268/ref=cm_cr_dp_mb_rvw_txt?ie=UTF8

Vespers

https://www.amazon.com/Evening-Worship-Orthodox-English-Russian/dp/088141011X

And here is a lecture on the history of the different divine liturgies.

https://youtu.be/i-39xxdeZ9Q

And here is a lecture on what litugircal theology is from the view of fr. Alexander Schmemann delivered by a theology professor with Notre Dame (both authors are linked above)

https://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/svsvoices/the_anchor_of_schmemanns_liturgical_theology

This book by Fr Vladimir Lossky is a really good place to start. Also, (as /u/CollectsWelfare said) Bishop Kallistos Ware's The Orthodox Church/Way books are solid starting points. Fr Alexander Schmeman's For the Life of the World is another goldmine.

But, and you'll find that at least one person says this to almost every question on this sub, nothing beats talking to a priest (and in your case, going to the liturgy, which you said you do).

You could also try John Dominic Crossan's work on the historical Jesus and life in the 1st century.

John Dominic Crossan dates parts of Thomas to the 50s CE, although the full extant document would be much later of course.

https://www.amazon.com/Historical-Jesus-Mediterranean-Jewish-Peasant/dp/0060616296

>Once you deviate from the ideals of medieval catholic dogma, your life would become worthless.

This entire paragraph conveys so much ignorance of Christian history in general, and Catholicism in particular, I don't even know where to start, except to recommend a book to you:

http://www.amazon.com/Atheist-Delusions-Christian-Revolution-Fashionable/dp/0300164297

>It seems you are conflating nationalism with humanism. These are very different things.

The former was only intellectually possible due to the latter.

>Did it promote them? No. Humanism maintains that the center of society should be human rights and the value of the individual life.

Just keep repeating that tired old dogma, at least the Catholic dogmas were lived by. Humanist ones are just claimed loudly and repeatedly until everyone else acquiesces.

>I would argue that humanism supports the creation of a society that prioritizes human rights and liberties, but it is not a philosophy that supports the violent action to create that society.

No, it spawns nationalists to do the dirty work for them.

It was more like a conquest or a revolution which spread across Europe, often accompanied by destruction and ignorance. Many libraries, shrines, statues etc were destroyed. I learned a lot from this book, “The Darkening age - The Christian Destruction of the Classical world”

https://www.amazon.com/Darkening-Age-Christian-Destruction-Classical/dp/0544800885

It's really not all "bollocks".

Interesting read: http://www.amazon.com/Same-Sex-Unions-Premodern-Europe-Boswell/dp/0679751645

The Romans liked to invent religions in order to control their subjects better. They got tired of Jews rebelling and warring so created one that taught to "turn the other cheek" and to "Give back to Caesar what is Caesar's" It became so successful some people still follow it today.

Read Bart Erhman. My library has all his e-books, hopefully you have access to one.

This way we remove all the accretions stuck to Jesus' story, and the real truth of how loving and progressive and radically equality-oriented earliest Christianity was will make you love them more.

https://www.amazon.com/Misquoting-Jesus-Story-Behind-Changed-ebook/dp/B000SEGJF8/ref=la_B001I9RR7G_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1498111603&sr=1-3

> "And I count Christianity as the main offender here. Yes it was true to say that a millennium ago, the Muslim world was ahead of the christian west, but that doesn't say anything good about Islam, it's just a reminder of how terrible Christianity was. "

That jibe at Christianity doesn't make the comment better; it makes it worse. You can write entire books on what's wrong with Sam's point there (and some have), but here's a few:

1. It's true that (Western) Europe went through a politically and socially unstable time during at least part of the muslim golden age (the first half, broadly). To pin this on Christianity though, is insane. It was the collapse of the Western Roman Empire that plunged Western Europe into relative decline, and it took centuries for Europe to fully recover. But Christianity had nothing to do with the fall of the WRE (which was well into its decline by the time Christianity became state religion), and no religion (or lack of one) could have stopped the subsequent implosion.
   
   
2. Presenting Western Europe under Christianity (we can assume he's talking about the early and mid Middle Ages) as "terrible" or backwards is to buy into Victorian preconceptions. Yes, the Roman implosion hurt and it took much time to recover. But the Middle Ages was a fairly inventive time in the West as well, arguably more so than the mid and late Roman era. The Roman propensity for slave labor and general aversion to technology was not conducive to science; instead it was the Middle Ages that saw many advances in optics, architecture, metallurgy, agriculture, and so on.
   
   
3. Despite what we as atheists may think based on debating creationists, there is no evidence that Christianity slowed down the progress of science in the Middle Ages (and yes, I know about Galileo and Bruno, and no, they're not evidence of that). In fact, during the turbulence in Europe, the Christian clergy was one of the only institutions capable of preserving knowledge and expanding it. Which they did. And it's very arguable that without them, science and learning in Medieval Europe would have recovered slower than it did.
   
   Frankly, Sam's answer to that question was a rehash of several historical myths and a general embarrassment. Virtually every single one of his answer's sentences must be extensively unpacked for how wrong it is. It's one of the things I hope he would correct.