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I don't think there is any doubt that he did exist. Early Christians wrote about him, Jewish historians wrote about him and secular historians wrote about him. The number, timing and accuracy of early manuscripts is unparalleled in antiquity for an event which happened 2000 years ago.Did Jesus really exist? Not much is known about him.
That would be the subordination of religion.Religion is not seeing the tree because of all the leaves.
Ummm... no, it doesn't. First of all TAOTC did exist and it is extremely relevant to the claim of Jesus being the Word of God.Its existence is of no transcendent importance. That is the point. Whether or not the object was 'real', it at most only distracts from the greater message.It's all part of the grotesque misinterpretation of the significance of Jesus. Everything about him of real importance is metaphysical, and everything physical, meaningless.
Not necessarily. It could be the Ark of the Covenant. It did exist.
That's not entirely true. Women who were shunned because they were perceived to be promiscuous would have gone to the well by themselves. Maybe you meant no Jewish woman in good standing would have been been wandering around on her own during those biblical times.^^ So Jesus was married! Well why shouldn't he have been? Reared as a Jew, celibacy would have almost certainly been an idea totally foreign to him. "Be fruitful and multiply" was the biblical creed that all Jews considered sacred. Celibacy as a Christian ideal wouldn't become law until the Council of Elvira (300-306) decreed (Canon 33): It is decided that marriage be altogether prohibited to bishops, priests, and deacons, or to all clerics placed in the ministry, and that they keep away from their wives and not beget children; whoever does this, shall be deprived of the honor of the clerical office.
Christian scholars explain the reason: The Church wanted to insure that the wealth of its leadership would not be dissipated by way of family inheritance. A non-married clergy would always return their possessions to Rome.
Historians have pointed out the chilling effects of this doctrine. The "best and the brightest" were invariably encouraged to enter the prestigious life of the priesthood. That effectively condemned their genes to hereditary oblivion. Jews, on the other hand, turned those with the greatest intellectual potential to rabbinic lives of learning and teaching combined with an emphasis on large families. That, claims Will Durant in his classic The Lessons of History, is what in all probability accounts for the statistically unbelievable preponderance of Jewish Nobel Prize winners and achievements.
More troubling for Christians, a married Jesus is far too much a human figure instead of a god to be worshipped. Christianity can't conceive of their object of divine reverance as a sexual being -- or even as one conceived by the sexual act. It is a troublesome relationship with physical pleasure that turned Christian teachings away from their Jewish biblical source. But Jews have no problem with a married Moses. It is the Torah that Moses brought to us that not only commands marriage but calls it Kiddushin -- an ideal state of holiness.^^
Jesus shacked up with Mary Magdalene but never married her. Take a close look at the Last Supper by Leonardo de Vinci and the disciple commonly called John in reality is Mary Magdalene.
Shacked up? lol.
Yes, I know about the Last Supper painting.
And I think there was a passage in the NewTestament which implied the disciples were jealous of Mary Magdalene. And regarding her, no Jewish woman would been been wandering around on her own during those biblical times.
Is that your response to my question about what you believed the message is?If Jesus is the word of 'God', no other words are needed.
Type Holy Grail in to any search machine......you don't need me to finish that sentence.
The sheer multiplicity of what any search engine throws up demonstrates that there is no clear consensus as to what the Grail is or was. But that doesn’t mean there aren’t plenty of people out there claiming to know its history, true meaning and even where to find it.
Modern authors, perhaps most (in)famously Dan Brown, offer new interpretations and, even when these are clearly and explicitly rooted in little more than imaginative fiction, they get picked up and bandied about as if a new scientific and irrefutable truth has been discovered. The Grail, though, will perhaps always eschew definition. But why?
The first known mention of a Grail (“un graal”) is made in a narrative spun by a 12th century writer of French romance, Chrétien de Troyes, who might reasonably be referred to as the Dan Brown of his day – though some scholars would argue that the quality of Chrétien’s writing far exceeds anything Brown has so far produced.
Chrétien’s Grail is mystical indeed – it is a dish, big and wide enough to take a salmon, that seems capable to delivering food and sustenance. To obtain the Grail requires asking a particular question at the Grail Castle. Unfortunately, the exact question (“Whom does the Grail serve?”) is only revealed after the Grail quester, the hapless Perceval, has missed the opportunity to ask it. It seems he is not quite ready, not quite mature enough, for the Grail.
What exactly is the Holy Grail – and why has its meaning eluded us for centuries?
