Shortly before 7 p.m. Tuesday, a volley of rockets lit up the darkened sky over Gaza. Videos analyzed by The Associated Press show one veering off course, breaking up in the air before crashing to the ground.
Seconds later, the videos show a large explosion in the same area – the site of Gaza’s al-Ahli Arab Hospital.
Who is to blame for the fiery explosion has set off intense debate and finger pointing between the Israeli government and Palestinian militants, further escalating tensions in their two week-long war.
I’m not sure how to break this to you… The first written record of Jesus doesn’t appear until some 70 years after the date of his crucifixion. That’s in the writings of Josephus, but the problem with Josephus is that the copy that survived is from the 4th century, which appears to have been edited by Eusebius, a Christian, inserting the mention of Jesus. Quotations of Josephus prior to Eusebius make no mention of Jesus. Good reading here:
https://www.jstor.org/stable/43723559
We know people like Pontius Pilate existed because we have documents from the era talking to and about him. There’s nothing remotely similar for Jesus.
I describe it like this, the story goes that Jesus was an amazing figure, speaking to the masses at the sermon on the mount, raising the dead, etc. Why is there no written record of him at the time? No letter from one person to another going “Hey, I just saw this Jesus guy and he’s making a lot of sense!” No Roman records for arrest, trial or execution? And man, those Romans loved their documents.
A modern day equivalent would be having no written record of Elvis until some 70 years after he died, and the only surviving copy of that 70 year document being from another transcriber 400 years after he died. We would still be 24 years away from the first written record of Elvis.
It’s amazing how a first century Jewish person would be expressing an idea of the Trinity that wouldn’t come around for another two centuries and that of all his writings he only changed topics like this a single time. Also that people familiar with Christianity and his works just never mention this for 200-300 years.
Imagine a super popular book written in 1723 and only last week someone mentioned what might be the single most important passage. Incredible.
Yup. Part of the problem is that people still think the Gospels were written by Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John when we know, factually, they weren’t.