[Rich]

Acts of the Apostles (which tells his story) was written in AD70.

I would suggest that it was written considerably later. Luke-Acts is dependant and hence later than Mark. Mark itself was written quite some time after the fall of Jerusalem in 71AD as it seeks to explain away the failure of the apocalypse and the second coming to follow on from this seemly massively significant event. The earliest Christians never talk about a return, because it was only later that Jesus's drama and sacrificed was envisaged to have been taken place on Earth. The Epistle to the Hebrews is the closest we come to a smoking gun of Jesus's non existent. Luke can not be trusted at all as a source of information about the early Christian Church at the time of Paul.

At first sight it may seem natural to believe that there was an ordinary human preacher / healer / guru / resistance leaser who became increasingly mythologised and divinised. However on examination the evidence does not support this thesis at all.

[Pants-of-dog]

@Rich

That sounds more plausible than the currently accepted date.

But even if we go with the current consensus rather than facts, the point still stands that Stephen was supposedly martyred decades before the story of his martyrdom was written down.

[Hindsite]

I would suggest that it was written considerably later. Luke-Acts is dependant and hence later than Mark. Mark itself was written quite some time after the fall of Jerusalem in 71AD as it seeks to explain away the failure of the apocalypse and the second coming to follow on from this seemly massively significant event. The earliest Christians never talk about a return, because it was only later that Jesus's drama and sacrificed was envisaged to have been taken place on Earth. The Epistle to the Hebrews is the closest we come to a smoking gun of Jesus's non existent. Luke can not be trusted at all as a source of information about the early Christian Church at the time of Paul.

You are not very knowledgeable of early Christian beliefs because the Apostle Paul wrote the following letter about A.D. 51, according to the expert bible scholars:

For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first:

Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord.
(1 Thessalonians 4:16-17 KJV)

That is where we get the idea of the rapture of the believers when the Lord Himself returns from heaven.

Matthew records the fact that the disciples asked the Lord Jesus about the sign of his coming:

And as he sat upon the mount of Olives, the disciples came unto him privately, saying, Tell us, when shall these things be? and what shall be the sign of thy coming, and of the end of the world?
(Matthew 24:3 KJV)

The following is part of His answer:

And then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven: and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory.

And he shall send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.
(Matthew 24:30-31 KJV)

Also, most historians and biblical scholars place the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple in A.D. 70. The biblical experts also believe that Mark had to have been written before the temple at Jerusalem was destroyed because an event like that would have certainly been mentioned, since the Lord Jesus had predicted it as recorded in three gospels, Matthew, Mark, and Luke. They estimate that Mark was written no later than A.D. 68.
Praise the Lord.

[Rich]

You are not very knowledgeable of early Christian beliefs because the Apostle Paul wrote the following letter about A.D. 51, according to the expert bible scholars:

For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first:

Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord.
(1 Thessalonians 4:16-17 KJV)

That is where we get the idea of the rapture of the believers when the Lord Himself returns from heaven.

Notice Paul, 1 Thessalonians being a genuine Pauline, doesn't say anything about a return. The earliest Christians or proto Christians expected Jesus to appear, they just don't see that appearance as a return because they believed Jesus' cosmic drama to have taken place in the lower heavens.

Acts heavily contradicts Paul's letters. Paul seems to have already been living in Damascus when he had his conversion. The departure from Jerusalem is an invention of Acts. The purpose of this fabrication is clear. Paul's behaviour that we can piece together from his letters is utterly inexplicable if the Jerusalem proto Christian leaders had really been disciples of Jesus. A major aim of Acts is to subordinate Paul to Jesus. To cover up this inexplicable behaviour of Paul.

But even if we go with the current consensus rather than facts, the point still stands that Stephen was supposedly martyred decades before the story of his martyrdom was written down.

Indeed, but Paul never mentions the martyrdom of Stephen. There may been a famous killing of a religious activist called Stephen, but even if that was the case there is no reason to assume to that Stephen was a proto - Christian. The group referred to as the Twelve was not the same as the Apostles. Nether the Twelve nor the Apostles had ever met Jesus, because he hadn't been on earth. The Gospel writers later conflated the Twelve and the Apostles and made them disciples of Jesus. The story of Stephen has been inserted as part of the fabrication of a line of Apostolic succession.

[ingliz]

I take issue with the idea that...

The Romans thought solicited martyrdom foolish too.

You wretches, if you want to die, you have cliffs to leap from and ropes to hang by.

— Arrius Antoninus, proconsul of the province of Asia

By this time, though, even if such beliefs were always contested (Canon 60, Council of Elvira), there were those who did not merely volunteer for martyrdom, they provoked it. They smashed idols, disrupted pagan rituals and assaulted temple priests knowing they would die in the ensuing violence. The ideology of martyrdom had shifted subtly – for some, martyrs did not simply die for God, now they killed and terrorised in his name.

[Hindsite]

Notice Paul, 1 Thessalonians being a genuine Pauline, doesn't say anything about a return. The earliest Christians or proto Christians expected Jesus to appear, they just don't see that appearance as a return because they believed Jesus' cosmic drama to have taken place in the lower heavens.

Acts heavily contradicts Paul's letters. Paul seems to have already been living in Damascus when he had his conversion. The departure from Jerusalem is an invention of Acts. The purpose of this fabrication is clear. Paul's behaviour that we can piece together from his letters is utterly inexplicable if the Jerusalem proto Christian leaders had really been disciples of Jesus. A major aim of Acts is to subordinate Paul to Jesus. To cover up this inexplicable behaviour of Paul.

This descending from heaven in 1 Thessalonians 4:16 is a visable return. So Paul does not have to use that exact word "return" to give the same meaning, since this is only a translation to English. In 1 Corinthians 23, Paul says "at his coming." This "coming" and "descent from heaven" is obviously a "return" since Christ had to be here before physically to have died.

It should be clear from Paul's first letter to the Corinthian Church that Paul believed in the physical death of Jesus and that Jesus was also raised from the dead physically. Paul starts out in 1 Corinthians 15 by reminding the members of the Church of the gospel message that Jesus did die, was buried, and was raised from the dead for the salvation of man. Next Paul states that there were witnesses of the resurrection of Jesus, not only by His disciples but by more than 500 people. Then he writes the following:

For if the dead rise not, then is not Christ raised:

And if Christ be not raised, your faith is vain; ye are yet in your sins.

Then they also which are fallen asleep in Christ are perished.

If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable.

But now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the firstfruits of them that slept.

For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead.

For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.

But every man in his own order: Christ the firstfruits; afterward they that are Christ's at his coming.
(1 Corinthians 15:16-23 KJV)

Check this out about who witnessed the martyrdom of Stephen as recorded in Acts 6 and 7:

Stephen (Greek: Στέφανος Stéphanos, meaning "wreath, crown" and by extension "reward, honor", often given as a title rather than as a name, Hebrew: סטפנוס הקדוש‎), (c. AD 5 – c. AD 34) traditionally venerated as the protomartyr or first martyr of Christianity, was according to the Acts of the Apostles a deacon in the early church at Jerusalem who aroused the enmity of members of various synagogues by his teachings. Accused of blasphemy at his trial, he made a speech denouncing the Jewish authorities who were sitting in judgment on him and was then stoned to death. His martyrdom was witnessed by Saul of Tarsus, a Pharisee who would later become a follower of Jesus and known as Paul the Apostle.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Stephen

[ingliz]

Saul of Tarsus, a Pharisee

Why would a Pharisee, resentful of Roman hegemony and of the Sadducean quisling regime, serve the High Priest?

The High Priest, as the New Testament bears witness, was the leader of the Sadducees and, as such, was in continual conflict with the Pharisees, not only on religious matters but also on the political question of how far to collaborate with the Roman occupation.

[Hindsite]

Why would a Pharisee, resentful of Roman hegemony and of the Sadducean quisling regime, serve the High Priest?

The High Priest, as the New Testament bears witness, was the leader of the Sadducees and, as such, was in continual conflict with the Pharisees, not only on religious matters but also on the political question of how far to collaborate with the Roman occupation.

The Sadducees and Pharisees comprised the ruling class of Jews in Israel. Even though they had disagreements on some issues, both groups honored Moses and the Law, and they both had a measure of religious and political power. The Sadducees’ main focus of power was the temple rituals in Jerusalem; the Pharisees controlled the synagogues. The Sanhedrin, the 70-member religious and legal supreme court of Israel at the time of Jesus, had members from both the Sadducees and the Pharisees. Caiaphas was the high priest of the Sanhedrin at the time of Jesus' trial and execution.

As a Pharisee, Saul of Tarsus believed the followers of Jesus had broken away from Hebrew tradition and deserved punishment under Jewish law. However, he was still required to get legal permission to apprehend and bring any of the Christians he caught back for punishment. So it was his idea, not that of the High Priest, to go after those that were following the new way taught by Jesus. He was not serving the High Priest by persecuting the believers in Jesus, if that is what you mean.

But Saul, still breathing threat and murder against the disciples of the Lord, went to the high priest and asked him for letters to the synagogues in Damascus, so that he might bring bound to Jerusalem any whom he found who belonged to The Way, both men and women.
(Acts 9:1-2)

[ingliz]

As a Pharisee, Saul of Tarsus believed ...

Not as a Pharisee.

The Pharisees, to a man under Gamaliel, were sympathetic to James' Jerusalem Church and the Nazarenes whom they believed were pious Jews.

[Hindsite]

Not as a Pharisee.

The Pharisees, to a man under Gamaliel, were sympathetic to James' Jerusalem Church and the Nazarenes whom they believed were pious Jews.

That may be partially true for Gamaliel, who showed tolerance in dealing with Peter and the early Apostles, who were being prosecuted before the Sanhedrin for continuing to preach the gospel despite the Jewish authorities having previously prohibited it. He is described in Acts 5 as presenting a convincing argument to the counsel against condemning them to death.

However, in Acts 6 and 7, Stephen is charged before the council and stoned to death as Saul of Tarsus witnessed. There is no mention of Gamaliel even attempting to intervene to save Stephen.

Saul was in hearty agreement with putting him to death.
(Acts 8:1)

James' Jerusalem Church may have been more tolerated since James seemed to present being an apostle of doing the works of the law of Moses, which agreed with both the thinking of the Pharisees and the Sadducees.

[ingliz]

As a Pharisee

The Pharisees believed that the OT teaches a general resurrection of the just and the unjust (Ezekiel 37:1-14).

Since the Paul of the Epistles clearly only believes in a resurrection for the saved or those in Christ and who belong to Christ at his coming and not for the unsaved, the wages of sin is death (Rom 6:23), and since he speaks of hoping he will attain unto the resurrection (Phil 3:11) he is clearly not a Pharisee.

His hope of the resurrection for those in Christ is based on analogy to Jesus’ resurrection (1 Cor 15).

[Verv]

The Church was claiming the witness of their many martyrs as proof of the truth of their doctrines.

And when the Nations of the World hear all of this praise, they say to
Israel, Let us go along with you, as it is said, “Whither is thy Beloved gone,
O thou fairest among women? Whither hath thy Beloved turned, that we
may seek Him with thee?”

— From the late third-century midrash on Exodus, the Mekhilta,

The martyr consciousness is very rarely seen among Christian Jews in Palestine. The early martyrs were for the most part refusing to violate a negative commandment (to worship idols); it is only in later antiquity that the commandment the Jewish Christian sect is fulfilling through their deaths is a positive one (to love God).

The Church created the idea of martyrdom as a positive religious value per se.

(1) How did they create it to be that way?

(2) What is and who were the Christian Jews?

Why was seeking martyrdom declared anathema?

The 'poor deluded brainwashed fools', being many and not always Orthodox, became a problem when heretics began to use the same argument claiming their many martyrs as proof of the truth of their heresies.

Source?

Jewish sect?

So you must be careful to do everything they tell you. But do not do what they do, for they do not practice what they preach.

Matt. 23:3

I know you disapprove of me calling the Early Christians a Jewish sect but, if you go at it step by step and verse by verse, all the teachings of Jesus are to be found in the utterances of the rabbis, at any rate those teachings and words of Jesus which really are of any significance. The Pharisees, under Gamaliel, were friendly to the Jerusalem Church. It was Paul who denied Jesus's Jewishness (Galations 1:12).

It is correct that things like love your neighbor as how you love yourself do go back to Leviticus. But at the same time, we have people here saying that stuff like in John 8 is anti-Semitic.

Christianity clearly departs from Judaism.

It's an abuse of language to refer to it as a 'sect' of Judaism, and this tactic is only selectively employed to anger people.

Mark is the earliest Gospel and it stops at...

Trembling and bewildered, the women went out and fled from the tomb. They said nothing to anyone, because they were afraid.

16: 8

Mark gives no accounts of anyone seeing Jesus as Matthew, Luke, and John later report. In fact, according to Mark, any future sightings of Jesus will be in the north, in Galilee, not in Jerusalem.


It was considered so deficient by later Christians that various endings were added by editors and copyists to try to remedy things - The most famous being found in the KJV.

Theologically, how he started the Gospel was also problematic. He has no account of the virgin birth of Jesus or for that matter, any birth of Jesus at all.

Source?

[Verv]

Again, this does not support your claim that Romans worked with Jews to persecute Christians.

Nor does it support the other claim you made (that contradicts the claim I just mentioned) where the Jews were persecuting Christians without Roman help.

So I get credit for both of these claims:
(1) Jews & Romans persecuting Christians together
(2) Jews persecuting Christians by themselves

I was under the impression that you agreed with (1).

What do you think happened?

Again, Sail asked for travel papers to go to a city that was no longer run by Romans, which meant that his Roman citizenship would not be enough to enter the city.

He was receiving these travel papers from the high priest of the Synagogue on a purely bureaucratic errand -- that is what you believe?

You know already.

Again, my point was that oppression has nothing to do with self-identity, and is based solely on how the oppressor identifies the oppressed. So your claim that oppression of LGBtQ people coild not have happened (because of a lack of self-identity) is wrong.

An LGBTQ person is someone who identifies as Lesbian-Gay-Bisexual-Transgender-Queer plus, and does things that line up with this.

Do you dispute that definition?

He supposedly died in AD 34.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Stephen

Acts of the Apostles (which tells his story) was written in AD70.

https://www.britannica.com/topic/The-Ac ... -Testament

What is the relevance of the gap in when it was officially composed?

Okay! Let us start with the easy bit.

When were the four Gospels written?

I do not know when they were first written. I'd suggest that all of them except John were written pretty early, or at least functioned as collections that were being verbally preserved far and wide before they were committed to paper.

What do you think?

1. Their portrayal of Pilate and other Romans was only one tactic among a whole slew. It would be incorrect to say that this was the only method by which they ingratiated themselves with the Romans.

What were the others?

2. Christianity could not have been “distorted” because there was no Christianity to distort. Whatever they made at this time would end ip being Christianity. It is not as if there was a natural and organic Christianity that came into being without humans.

Why wasn't there a Christianity to be distorted?

They talk about there being councils, gatherings, agreed upon authorities that interacted with each other in the 1st century in books like Acts. Do you think that is all false?

While Christians claim to eschew material gain and are supposed to sacrifice their worldly goods, the vast majority of them do not and have not.

It's a lot easier to do that in Texas in the year 1998 than it is to do that in Rome in the year 93.

It is easy to imagine a scenario where a Roman adopts Christianity for selfish purposes and never worries about getting caught because of other powerful contacts he has.

That'd be naive.

Once again, I did not claim that the texts were altered.

I claimed that the myths were altered before they became written texts.

What is your evidence?

[Verv]

Indeed, but Paul never mentions the martyrdom of Stephen. There may been a famous killing of a religious activist called Stephen, but even if that was the case there is no reason to assume to that Stephen was a proto - Christian. The group referred to as the Twelve was not the same as the Apostles. Nether the Twelve nor the Apostles had ever met Jesus, because he hadn't been on earth. The Gospel writers later conflated the Twelve and the Apostles and made them disciples of Jesus. The story of Stephen has been inserted as part of the fabrication of a line of Apostolic succession.

Wait, what?

Is there a whole line of references to "the Twelve" from non-Christian sources or others that suggest that these Twelve are not the Apostles?

This sounds really, really interesting -- I've never heard it before. I feel like I'm about to read some super-gnostic stuff -- like, playing Infected Mushroom and tripping on 1200 micrograms on a beach in Goa sort of gnostic stuff, and later a 60 year old British man will let me sleep in his bungalow after we do a 2-hour yoga session and he gives me his Shaktipat.

[Hindsite]

The Pharisees believed that the OT teaches a general resurrection of the just and the unjust (Ezekiel 37:1-14).

That does not prove that the Pharisees believed in a general resurrection of the just and the unjust. There is nothing mentioned about the just and the unjust and the vision is for "the whole house of Israel" verse 11.

Since the Paul of the Epistles clearly only believes in a resurrection for the saved or those in Christ and who belong to Christ at his coming and not for the unsaved, the wages of sin is death (Rom 6:23), and since he speaks of hoping he will attain unto the resurrection (Phil 3:11) he is clearly not a Pharisee.

His hope of the resurrection for those in Christ is based on analogy to Jesus’ resurrection (1 Cor 15).

The apostle Paul was preaching mainly to the Gentiles, who had no understanding of the Old Testament law and judgment for sinners. You point out that Paul says "the wages of sin is death", but you ignore the rest of what he said.

For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

The apostle Paul was concentrating on the Gentiles receiving this gift of God of eternal life by putting their faith and trust in the Lord Jesus Christ.

For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God;

Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus:

Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God;

To declare, I say, at this time his righteousness: that he might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus.
(Romans 3:23-26 KJV)

So it was this resurrection that he was teaching the Gentiles. It certainly does not prove Paul did not believe in the second resurrection that is for the damned. He was just indicating his hope to attain this resurrection for eternal life over the resurrection for the damned.

Marvel not at this: for the hour is coming, in the which all that are in the graves shall hear his voice, And shall come forth; they that have done good, unto the resurrection of life; and they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of damnation..
(John 5:28-29 KJV)

This is also mentioned in Revelation.

And I saw thrones, and they sat upon them, and judgment was given unto them: and I saw the souls of them that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus, and for the word of God, and which had not worshipped the beast, neither his image, neither had received his mark upon their foreheads, or in their hands; and they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years.

But the rest of the dead lived not again until the thousand years were finished. This is the first resurrection.

Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection: on such the second death hath no power, but they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with him a thousand years.

And when the thousand years are expired, Satan shall be loosed out of his prison,

And shall go out to deceive the nations which are in the four quarters of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them together to battle: the number of whom is as the sand of the sea.

And they went up on the breadth of the earth, and compassed the camp of the saints about, and the beloved city: and fire came down from God out of heaven, and devoured them.

And the devil that deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are, and shall be tormented day and night for ever and ever.

And I saw a great white throne, and him that sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away; and there was found no place for them.

And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God; and the books were opened: and another book was opened, which is the book of life: and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works.

And the sea gave up the dead which were in it; and death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them: and they were judged every man according to their works.

And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death.

And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire.
(Revelation 20:4-15 KJV)

[ingliz]

Source?

The ancient Greek text.

"the whole house of Israel"

Why would they care what happened to the gentiles? They, the Jews, are the Chosen.

In the 'World to Come', a physical creation, every Jewish soul that ever lived will be resurrected...

Even the empty ones amongst you [Israel] are filled with mitzvot as a pomegranate [is filled with seeds]

— Talmud, Berachot 57a.

The soul of every Jew is a "veritable portion of G‑d," and as such is eternal and indestructible.

A 'general resurrection' (for good and bad Jews*) in carefully chosen Bible verses:

Everyone is awake and singing for joy.

Your dead shall live; their bodies shall rise. You who dwell in the dust, awake and sing for joy! For your dew is a dew of light, and the earth will give birth to the dead.

— Isaiah 26:19

God judges no-one.

Therefore prophesy and say to them: "This is what the Sovereign Lord says: My people, I am going to open your graves and bring you up from them; I will bring you back to the land of Israel. Then you, my people, will know that I am the Lord, when I open your graves and bring you up from them."

— Ezekiel 37:12-13

The Lord settles them in their own land.

"I will put my Spirit in you and you will live, and I will settle you in your own land. Then you will know that I the Lord have spoken, and I have done it, declares the Lord."

— Ezekiel 37:14

Where the just, the complete souls that have completed all of the 613 commandments, are honoured and the unjust forever live with their shame.

some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt

— Daniel 12:2

A general resurrection...

The Jewish people believed that God created the world. Our physical world is God's creation, and it is good. The Pharisees, in contrast to the Greco-Roman religious beliefs, vigorously affirmed the doctrine of the resurrection of the dead. The Pharisees stressed a literal resurrection of the physical body, which would be reunited with the spirit of an individual. Their worldview embraced a future restoration of God's original design for his world. The Pharisees envisioned a time of redemption in which God would realign the physical creation with the ethereal realm.

— B. H. Young, Paul, The Jewish Theologian





* In this context, justice meant observing the rules of the covenant.

[Rich]

Wait, what?

Is there a whole line of references to "the Twelve" from non-Christian sources or others that suggest that these Twelve are not the Apostles?

This sounds really, really interesting -- I've never heard it before. I feel like I'm about to read some super-gnostic stuff -- like, playing Infected Mushroom and tripping on 1200 micrograms on a beach in Goa sort of gnostic stuff, and later a 60 year old British man will let me sleep in his bungalow after we do a 2-hour yoga session and he gives me his Shaktipat.

For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance[a]: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, 4 that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, 5 and that he appeared to Cephas,[b] and then to the Twelve. 6 After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers and sisters at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep. 7 Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles, 8 and last of all he appeared to me also, as to one abnormally born.

As most Christians seem to be so stupid and have to be spoon fed the basics of biblical study, I better point out that according to the Gospels-Acts, there were only 11 apostles at the time.

[Pants-of-dog]

So I get credit for both of these claims:
(1) Jews & Romans persecuting Christians together
(2) Jews persecuting Christians by themselves

I was under the impression that you agreed with (1).

What do you think happened?

No. The Romans did not persecute the Christians until 64 AD.

The Jews dis not persecute them at all. Some Pharisees dis, but Jews in general did not.

He was receiving these travel papers from the high priest of the Synagogue on a purely bureaucratic errand -- that is what you believe?

That is what the historical facts suggest. It is the most plausible claim.

An LGBTQ person is someone who identifies as Lesbian-Gay-Bisexual-Transgender-Queer plus, and does things that line up with this.

Do you dispute that definition?

This is irrelevant.

Do you understand the difference between “identifying as something” and “being identified as something”?

What is the relevance of the gap in when it was officially composed?

The point is that there were several decades between the time Stephen supposedly died and when his myth was written.

So we have no way of knowing if it actually happened, or why.

I do not know when they were first written. I'd suggest that all of them except John were written pretty early, or at least functioned as collections that were being verbally preserved far and wide before they were committed to paper.

What do you think?

I think you should learn this before making claims that assume they were written down soon after the crucifixion.

What were the others?

Not relevant.

Why wasn't there a Christianity to be distorted?

They talk about there being councils, gatherings, agreed upon authorities that interacted with each other in the 1st century in books like Acts. Do you think that is all false?

Again, you are using sources that were written decades after the era you are discussing.

In the era we are discussing, Christianity was just being created. There were the very first councils, gatherings et cetera. And the authorities were not agreed on. There was actually a lot of quarrelling about it.

It's a lot easier to do that in Texas in the year 1998 than it is to do that in Rome in the year 93.

I doubt that. Roman society was also about material gain and power.

That'd be naive.

No.

What would be naive is assuming all early Christians are all wonderful people with no greed, no rancor, no desire for political gain, and were perfectly happy and good.

What is your evidence?

We have literally been discussing this for pages. I am not repeating t for the fourth time.

Also, look up “sealioning”.

[Hindsite]

The ancient Greek text.

Why would they care what happened to the gentiles? They, the Jews, are the Chosen.

I don't think they did care what happened to the Gentiles, but Jesus did. So He chose a Pharisee, Saul of Tarsus, who was persecuting his disciples (Acts 9) to be a disciple to preach the gospel to the Gentiles as well as to the lost house of Israel. Remember that Jesus commanded the eleven disciples to "go and teach all nations to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost" (Matthew 28:19-20).

The Jews that have been brought back by God to Israel today don't care what happens to the Gentiles either. They only wish to rebuild the temple in Jerusalem and reestablish their traditions and national pride as God's chosen people.

Therefore prophesy and say to them: "This is what the Sovereign Lord says: My people, I am going to open your graves and bring you up from them; I will bring you back to the land of Israel. Then you, my people, will know that I am the Lord, when I open your graves and bring you up from them."

— Ezekiel 37:12-13

The Lord settles them in their own land.

"I will put my Spirit in you and you will live, and I will settle you in your own land. Then you will know that I the Lord have spoken, and I have done it, declares the Lord."

— Ezekiel 37:14

The above prophecy of Ezekiel is being fulfilled in our day and so are other prophecies like the rebirth of a nation in a day (Isaiah 66:7-8).
http://watchmanbiblestudy.com/articles/ ... illed.html

[Verv]

The ancient Greek text.

This doesn't substantiate your claim.