The oldest copy of Lucretius is from 800AD. The oldest copy of the Iliad and Odyssey is from the time Sinacticus was written. The oldest copy of Plato from 800AD. The oldest copy of of Oedipus from the 10th century AD. The oldest copy of Plutarch is from the 10th Century AD. The oldest copy of Herodotus from the 9th Century AD. The oldest copy of Ovid from the 9th Century AD. The oldest copy of Aristotle from the 9th Century AD. And you can plainly see they weren’t tampered with, or made tame by Christian Monks. They were perfectly preserved, so why wouldn’t the same be about the Bible, which we actually have more and older surviving manuscripts from? Thucydides in the 15th century AD—with a fragment from the 1st. Euripides from the 7th Century AD being among the oldest manuscripts. Get the picture? And if Monks were in the habit of forging sources, wouldn’t more historians mention Christianity or Christ? Also another thing to think about. Although, the Church heavily documented everything, from the early church, so we know about all of it from Church Fathers, and also records of it like Martyr’s Mirror by Thielman Van Braght or Annales Ecclesiastici by Caesar Baronius.

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When were the Gospels Written? In Response to Snark.

Do you want me to say 300AD with the Sinaiticus or Vaticanus? Because you do know that's not a valid argument, considering the source material is so much older, and we know that.

How about the Diatessaron, from 150AD, that has 80% of the entire four canonical Gospels in it?

Or how about Clement in 130AD quoting from the Gospels in the Church’s earliest sermons, and even having quotes from Christ that don’t appear in the Gospels, but probably came from eyewitnesses?

Or how about Papias in 90AD who tells us about Matthew and Mark, and the fragments that prove John dictated his Gospel to Papias?

Or how about Thomas, who took a Gospel of Matthew with him to India in 50AD? And low and behold, the churches still are there.

Or how about Paul, who knew Luke in about 40AD, and knew James and Mary and Peter and John?

7 And it came to pass in the days of Ahaz the son of Jotham, the son of Uzziah, king of Judah, that Rezin the king of Syria, and Pekah the son of Remaliah, king of Israel, went up toward Jerusalem to war against it, but could not prevail against it.

So, in the days of Ahaz, king of Judah, Rezin the king of Syria, and Pekah the son of Remaliah, king of Israel, came up against Jerusalem, and couldn't prevail against it. Israel was the Northern Kingdom, and Judah the southern, and Ephraim--the Northern Kingdom --was confederate with Syria against Judah.

2 And it was told the house of David, saying, Syria is confederate with Ephraim. And his heart was moved, and the heart of his people, as the trees of the wood are moved with the wind.

The peoples were moved in torment, like a storm blowing the treetops. Israel was at war with Judah. And the LORD would use Assyria to destroy both, and that is what this prophecy is about. Is Judah has to believe in God's redemption, or they will not be saved.

3 Then said the Lord unto Isaiah, Go forth now to meet Ahaz, thou, and Shearjashub thy son, at the end of the conduit of the upper pool in the highway of the fuller's field;

4 And say unto him, Take heed, and be quiet; fear not, neither be fainthearted for the two tails of these smoking firebrands, for the fierce anger of Rezin with Syria, and of the son of Remaliah.

The LORD is telling King Ahaz not to fear the war. For Syria and Ephraim will be broken. They are "Smoking Firebrands", they are evil, and shall be destroyed for Judah's sake.

5 Because Syria, Ephraim, and the son of Remaliah, have taken evil counsel against thee, saying,

6 Let us go up against Judah, and vex it, and let us make a breach therein for us, and set a king in the midst of it, even the son of Tabeal:

So Syria and Ephraim wanted to set a king over Judah, and make it a protectorate. The LORD would not allow this, and gave Judah a sign.

7 Thus saith the Lord God, It shall not stand, neither shall it come to pass.

The LORD said that the war against Judah would not stand.

8 For the head of Syria is Damascus, and the head of Damascus is Rezin; and within threescore and five years shall Ephraim be broken, that it be not a people.

After thirty five years, Ephraim would be broken, and not a people. Because of Israel's sin. The LORD would bring Assyria down upon all the earth, but deliver Judah out of Assyria's hand.

9 And the head of Ephraim is Samaria, and the head of Samaria is Remaliah's son. If ye will not believe, surely ye shall not be established.

If you will not believe, you will not be established. Believe in what? The child of the Virgin birth. The Messiah, Who comes to break the nations. If you will not believe in Him, you shall not be established it says.

10 Moreover the Lord spake again unto Ahaz, saying,

11 Ask thee a sign of the Lord thy God; ask it either in the depth, or in the height above.

So the LORD asked Ahaz to ask Him a sign,

12 But Ahaz said, I will not ask, neither will I tempt the Lord.

And Ahaz wouldn't.

13 And he said, Hear ye now, O house of David; Is it a small thing for you to weary men, but will ye weary my God also?

So the LORD gave Ahaz His own sign. Which Ahaz was wearying the LORD, by not asking a sign.

14 Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign; Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.

A Virgin shall give birth. This word "Virgin" is "Almah" which means "Maid" or "Unmarried Woman." Which it assumes in this time, that an unmarried woman would be a Virgin, lest she be a prostitute, which the covenant wouldn't come by means of a whorish woman. This shall be fulfilled three times. Once in Isaiah's day, once in Christ's day with the Virgin Mary, and a third time with Hephzibah, when she gives birth to the King, and He is taken to the clouds of heaven, and she is whistted away with eagle's wings, as the Serpent tries to consume her.

15 Butter and honey shall he eat, that he may know to refuse the evil, and choose the good.

Butter and honey shall the child eat, and that he may know to refuse the evil and choose the good.

16 For before the child shall know to refuse the evil, and choose the good, the land that thou abhorrest shall be forsaken of both her kings.

Before the Child was weaned from his mother's milk, the land that they abhor would be forsaken. This was fulfilled in the time of Isaiah, but also fulfilled at the time of Christ. And will have a third fulfillment, by Christ the Conqueror. Herod was killed, shortly after Jesus was departed with Mary and Joseph. And Rezin and Rameliah were defeated by Assyria shortly before the child was weaned. And those who oppress Judah in the times of the end, shall be destroyed, also.

17 The Lord shall bring upon thee, and upon thy people, and upon thy father's house, days that have not come, from the day that Ephraim departed from Judah; even the king of Assyria.

Now it's talking about the end days. Days unlike any other shall come, from the day that Ephraim departed from Judah. And the King of Assyria. Assyria shall come, and enter into Judah, and war against it with Ephraim as its ally. And they shall be destroyed by the King of Assyria. And in this time, there shall be tumultuous days.

18 And it shall come to pass in that day, that the Lord shall hiss for the fly that is in the uttermost part of the rivers of Egypt, and for the bee that is in the land of Assyria.

The LORD shall hiss for the fly and wasp, and they shall come out of the rivers of Egypt, those in the land of Assyria. And they shall overwhelm Israel and Syria, who are at war with Judah. But, Judah must believe in the sign, and it will be saved. The sign of the Messiah. At the end of the days, the LORD will bring Assyria again--for prophecies have three fulfillments, what was, what is and what is to come. And Assyria came in Isaiah's time, it came in Christ's time, when Rome sacked Jerusalem, through the mighty Titus--which there hadn't been a siege for many years, and Jerusalem was besieged by Rome, and it was a mighty war and victory for Rome--and again an Assyria shall rise up, and destroy Israel and Syria, who are Confederate against the faithful. Just like the Jews were Confederate against Christians, so shall this time be.

19 And they shall come, and shall rest all of them in the desolate valleys, and in the holes of the rocks, and upon all thorns, and upon all bushes.

And the land shall be desolate--possibly after a global war, there will be no plant life. And there will be no love.

20 In the same day shall the Lord shave with a razor that is hired, namely, by them beyond the river, by the king of Assyria, the head, and the hair of the feet: and it shall also consume the beard.

And in that day, the LORD shall shave Assyria, of its attack, and he shall be consumed.

21 And it shall come to pass in that day, that a man shall nourish a young cow, and two sheep;

And in that day, a man shall nourish a young cow and two sheep--the man shall have milk and honey, which is a metaphor for love. While the world around him is evil, and false, and filled with cruelty, the man shall eat milk and honey, and be filled with love.

22 And it shall come to pass, for the abundance of milk that they shall give he shall eat butter: for butter and honey shall every one eat that is left in the land.

And this man shall eat from the abundance of his love, and be happy. For, the poor shall be left in the land. That is a recurring theme in Isaiah, is the assault of the rich man against the poor, and trying to destroy him, and move him. And this man, the poor man, who is poor, shall have love and be left in the land and eat "Milk and Honey" or "Curds and Honey." He shall have love, while the rest of the land is desolate.

23 And it shall come to pass in that day, that every place shall be, where there were a thousand vines at a thousand silverlings, it shall even be for briers and thorns.

And in the place of love, and prosperity, shall be desolation. But the poor man shall be fed by his two sheep and cow. The cow shall give him love, and the two sheep. And he will eat butter and honey, while the land is desolate due to sin. It is covered with briars and thorns--sharp people-- but the man who believes, shall eat butter and honey. He shall be filled with love on that day, if he believes.

Let's pause here to understand what "Belief" is. It is to know the LORD is Christ, and to believe on Him. And to be His servant, and trust in Him. And though your heart be troubled, if you just Know He is Who He Says He is, You shall be delivered on that day, by calling upon Him.

24 With arrows and with bows shall men come thither; because all the land shall become briers and thorns.

And the land shall be briars and thorns--filled with unrighteous people, and the land desolate and unnurturable. 

25 And on all hills that shall be digged with the mattock, there shall not come thither the fear of briers and thorns: but it shall be for the sending forth of oxen, and for the treading of lesser cattle.

But the righteous, he shall have the briars and thorns tread down by the love given to him by his oxen. He shall have a double portion of love, though he be poor, and though the land be miserable around him. He shall have love, and be filled with love, though everything is barren nearby.

For Christians,—I can't speak of Buddhists—it means giving away all your money to the poor; healing the blind, sick, deaf, and lame; never having told a lie or did violence; never having stolen; feeding tens of thousands with only a few pieces of meat and dry bread; casting out demons; walking on water; having moral knowledge superior to 7 sages and living it out; dying and coming back to life; never having had sex out of wedlock or even having a lustful thought; if someone does you wrong, you forgive them immediately, no matter how bad; shutting up Lawyers and Doctors in debates with sound moral knowledge; associating with the lowest of the low, including those sick with contagious diseases, the most miserable poor, and the most flagrant criminals; setting free the captive; praising the poor widow over the affluent college professor; not seeking attention from people, but rather drawing them to you with your wisdom and kindness… and dying a torturous death and raising from the dead; to have never thought even a single adulterous, blasphemous, envious or violent thought; to have never been angry at God or your fellow man; to have never called someone worthless or tempted anyone… to call no one master or teacher but Christ Himself, and to hold no man in higher esteem than they ought, beside Christ Himself, and to love other people the same amount as you surely love yourself.

[W]e had writings from the second century saying that Jesus is God. The Second Letter of Clement. Which that Epistle is from ~ 115AD. I mean, [The Christ Mosaic] is interesting... but it's not really as important as the Dead Sea Scrolls. Not even close. What is important about the Dead Sea Scrolls, is it has the entire book of Isaiah in it, where the Passage of Isaiah 53 is clearly seen, speaking of Jesus. And that was written 100 years before Jesus, and it shows that the Bible is pretty much the same today, as it was when it was first written. 

{}We get this reductive in our research, we'll be unable to understand anything about history. Witnesses pass down historical accounts, and we keep them through written records copied down and transmitted through the centuries.

This just goes to show, people latch onto the wrong things. If it makes an argument weaker, they latch onto it. Because nowhere does anyone talk about the Tablet of Ebal. Of course, people obscure the clear passages, and try to make them say something they do not say. They did that with the Qeiyafa ostracon, but people are just lying about it. The evidence is clear that the Bible's true. They just deflect, lie, and cheat and steal. 

Like, there's plenty of second and first century writings that say Jesus is God. This is not something that we really needed, but actually pushes the date back, not forward.

{}

I think Josephus is legit. It was just cognitive dissonance. A lot of big stuff was happening, and people are known to waffle between different sets of belief. Like if one were to ask me what my opinion of Trump was, it changes every day. People are not one dimensional. And you can read in the tension, that Josephus is probably struggling with it like everyone else is.

I’ve read the entire Bible. There are no contradictions in its teachings.

Some people will read the Bible every year. Reading 5 chapters a day, you can read the entire Bible in one year. And some people have read the entire Bible 1000 times. Another person I saw online memorized every verse. Some people have read the Bible in one sitting.

Me… I’ve read War and Peace twice, I’ve read 50 classics in their entirety, some of them twice, I’ve read hundreds of excerpts from books, hundreds of poems and essays and short stories and news articles and encyclopedia entries, and I’ve probably read the Bible twice the amount of all of it.

So, I’ve also studied a little bit of math. And I’ve found the Quadratic Equation is a nice analogy. You can have two answers in a Quadratic equation. And they can be the complete opposite of one another. You can even have an equality, like sqrt(5-x)=5-x^2… rack your brain to figure that one out, but there’s two true answers. And to our human conception, it seems like it should be impossible. Why would there be two answers, and why would a complete contradiction of terms, equate? God’s a lot smarter than us, that’s why the Bible seems to contradict, when it doesn’t…

So, it can be hard to understand. But, generally, that’s just because God is God, and He’s brilliant, and communicated a Law and Testament to humanity that we needed to comprehend the moral scope of the universe.

Some people ask, “Why didn’t God give us science?” Well, to use science to any benefit, you need Law. As amoral ape beasts with unlimited technology is dangerous and that’s why He scattered us during the Tower of Babel, so we need God’s intelligence to teach us how to behave. And some people say, “Gotcha” on complicated issues such as slavery or genocide, but you look into human behavior, you look into the meaning of scripture… you start to see the pieces fall together.

To answer that in the simplest terms, the 1 + 1 = 2 answer, although it can have more complicated and nuanced explanations, the Bible, the Old Testament, is judgment against sin. So all sin it puts under condemnation and suffering and torment, as is said by Paul, and that law will be used as a casebook to judge the world for its sin. Whereby, Grace, the New Testament in Christ’s blood, saves us from that law. And even gives us license to disobey it for the sake of love. Not to say that we get to do what’s unlawful, but rather, what is in love we do for the sake of love, and not ritual; as the Pharisees by example had a lot of ritual but no love, so the law was changed under the priesthood of Christ Jesus. Like, for instance, Paul sending back Onesimus to Philemon, which was unlawful. The Law explicitly says not to return an escaped slave to their master, but Paul returned Onesimus to Philemon, with express intent to free Onesimus, but also to reunite them and make communion of saints.

Where our treasures are stored, there our hearts will be, too. Because I’m sure Christians being persecuted in Rome and Germany weren’t going around saying, “You know, I’m going to have that Millstone I always wanted.” Lol.

It’s really the cruelest part of the modern Christian faith, to throw verses like this at people. Making them think they have to accumulate a life now, when that’s just not possible for some people. In fact, most people.

Not to mention, most cultures are so poor they don’t have anything to really want.

Linking fortune with belief… that’s just not how it works. God’s in control, He’ll bestow fortune on whom He does, and ruin on whom He does. Belief is a non sequitur.

But mountains do move by faith… but generally, it’s different than you’d understand. The real stuff is knowledge of God, and knowing Him. It’s God Who moves the mountain, and makes things real. As the point isn’t, “God moves the mountain” but God establishes the mountain, and removes it by our belief. We are removed from this mountain—Mount Horeb—to mount Zion.

Oh, but they did. They established Churches in Persia, and Syria, and India, and Africa. The ones we don’t hear about were evangelists, who went abroad, and established many of the oldest churches. As it says, the least are the greatest, and the greatest are the least. I’d assume the Apostles we didn't hear about did some mighty things. The apostles we do hear about, like Matthew Levi Alphaeus—wrote a gospel being the only one literate—James Son of Thunder died immediately, and was among the first martyrs. But Judas Thaddeus Lebbeus Son of James and Simon the Zealot were evangelists in Persia and Syria, and planted churches there. Philip we know evangelized in Israel from Acts, but they say went as far as Anatolia and Greece and lived in Caesarea Philippi. John was the eldest apostle, dying at a ripe old age, and dictated the book of John through Papias around 90AD. Nathan Bartholomew established churches in Armenia, some of the oldest churches in the world. Doubting Thomas was an evangelist in Asia and India—and was killed by a Pagan King, same with Jude and Simon in Persia. Peter was stationed in Jerusalem and Rome, and was the Rock which kept the church solvent—they say the first bishop of Rome—and the source for the Gospel of Mark. Andrew ministered the churches in Turkey, which are some of the most famous in Christianity, being mentioned by John. Paul and Matthais were the two half tribes, and Matthais ministered all around the world, but seemed to plant Ethiopian Churches which again are among the eldest. James the Son of Alphaeus—or James the Less—was Bishop of Jerusalem, and the source, along with Mary the Lord’s Mother, of the Gospel of Luke. But from reading about all the Apostles, they planted hundreds of churches, in dozens of locations, each around the known world. They travelled everywhere planting churches, each one might have visited about a dozen locations, within a 700 mile radius.

Israel is not God’s Begotten Son. The Son of God is God’s Son. Who is Christ Jesus. It even names [H]im in Zechariah 3 and 6. Zechariah named “Joshua” Priest and King, which as you know Uzziah tried to do, and was stricken with a curse for attempting to do, so it was highly unlawful. Yet, Joshua represents a Priesthood that would come from the King, who is Christ, a Priesthood ordained from the Order of Melchizedek.