[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.