Matthew 16:4 and the sign of Jonah

Originally posted by 3NL1GHT3N3D1
reply to post by adjensen

 

He said the "ONLY" sign they would get was the sign of Jonah. The Pharisees had already seen a miraculous sign before so why say "only" instead of "last"? He knew they had already seen miracles by him so why use the words "only"? It doesn't fit in with the story before that instance.

I said Peter was born in a Roman province, that of Bethsaida. Whether he was a Roman or not is up for debate, then again I think Peter and Paul were actually the same person. Peter/Paul was the trojan horse sent in by the Romans in my opinion.

Well, I'll give you points for imagination, I guess. Given that the whole of Judea, and most of the Mediterranean basin was part of the Roman Empire, pretty much everyone in the Bible was "born in a Roman province," including Jesus. Do you think Jesus was a Roman citizen, as well?

No, there's absolutely nothing that would lead one to the conclusion that Peter and Paul were the same person.

Saul/Paul, Simon/Peter, both jailed in Mamertine prison, both founded the RCC together, etc. Also, the last pope is supposed to be called Peter the Roman and he's supposedly the antichrist. Matthew 20:16 comes to mind here. Peter is considered the first pope, Peter the antichrist is supposed to be last. Coincidence? Maybe.

And who was it that said "Peter the Roman" would be the last Pope? Jesus? No, Arnold de Wyon did, in 1595, so who cares?

Is it just a coincidence that Peter wasn't reinstated until after Jesus' supposed resurrection? You know, the time after he was supposed to have died and should have been dead? I don't think so.

What? That doesn't even make any sense. Peter's "reinstatement" was his opportunity to repent for having denied Jesus three times. As he did that the night before Jesus died, how would Jesus have been able to "reinstate" him until he was resurrected?

So Romans replacing Saturnalia with CHRISTmas isn't evidence of their intervention?

The "Romans" didn't replace Saturnalia, the Catholic Church created the festival of Christmas around the same time as the existing festival, for the reason that I cited.

The evidence that Romans wrote part of the bible is in Paul's epistles. You just admitted that Paul was a Roman earlier.

Who cares what Paul's citizenship was? The official state religion of Sweden today is Christianity. Do you think that everyone in Sweden is, therefore, a Christian? Hardly -- it's one of the most atheist populations in the world.

Citizenship and faith have nothing to do with each other.

reply to post by adjensen


I can see the attitude starting to come through. Settle down, it's just an opinion. It's not going to hurt you.

There's no proof that Peter was a Roman but Paul was for a fact. Whether you acknowledge the FACT that Paul was a Roman is completely up to you though. First you said there was no evidence that Romans had anything to do with the bible, then when I mention Paul you start backtracking and becoming an apologist giving excuses. That's the way I see it.

Just because you choose to ignore the similarities between the two doesn't mean there aren't any there. By the way, I don't have any better of an imagination than the Romans did back then I'm sure. They made billions believe a guy raised from the dead and walked on water, if you think it's more likely those things really happened instead of someone adding them in later then you will never get it.

I never said Peter the Roman was proof, all I said was that it was an interesting coincidence, ignore it if you want. But you're right, who cares about him? He wasn't around when Jesus died was he? Oh wait, neither was Paul, but you still take his word as the word of god.

No, according to John the reinstatement only happened after the crucifixion. The reinstatement is located in John 21, the crucifixion is located in John 19. So yes, he was reinstated only after he supposedly came back to life.

So the Romans had nothing to do with Saturnalia, it was the church! It makes so much sense because it's not like the church was called the ROMAN Catholic Church or run by Romans or anything, right?

I care about was Paul's citizenship was, sorry that you choose to ignore it. Funny how Paul kept his citizenship throughout the whole time he was spreading Jesus' message isn't it? You'd think Rome would take such a traitors citizenship away, but nope, I guess he was too important to them, huh?

reply to post by 3NL1GHT3N3D1


Now you're drifting off into your usual speculative nonsense. And here the thread held so much hope at one time

There's no proof that Peter was a Roman but Paul was for a fact. Whether you acknowledge the FACT that Paul was a Roman is completely up to you though. First you said there was no evidence that Romans had anything to do with the bible, then when I mention Paul you start backtracking and becoming an apologist giving excuses. That's the way I see it.

That's the way you see what? I'm the one who told you that Paul was a Roman citizen -- you thought that Peter was. And, again, who cares whether he was a Roman citizen, since that has absolutely nothing, repeat, nothing, to do with his being a Jewish Christian.

You trying to claim that "Romans wrote the Bible", implying that there was some sort of government conspiracy, solely on the basis of one of its authors having a Roman father and Jewish mother, a fact you were unaware of when you first postulated your "Romans wrote the Bible" claim, is delusional.

I never said Peter the Roman was proof, all I said was that it was an interesting coincidence, ignore it if you want. But you're right, who cares about him? He wasn't around when Jesus died was he? Oh wait, neither was Paul, but you still take his word as the word of god.

Who wasn't around when Jesus died? Peter? How do you know that? What evidence do you have that Paul wasn't there, for that matter. And kindly point out where I said that the word of Paul was the word of God.

No, according to John the reinstatement only happened after the crucifixion. The reinstatement is located in John 21, the crucifixion is located in John 19. So yes, he was reinstated only after he supposedly came back to life.

I still have no idea what this is supposed to mean.

So the Romans had nothing to do with Saturnalia, it was the church! It makes so much sense because it's not like the church was called the ROMAN Catholic Church or run by Romans or anything, right?

It's called the Roman Catholic church, unofficially, to differentiate it from other Catholic churches, like the Eastern Orthodox Catholic church. Officially, it is simply the Catholic church.

The term Roman Catholic appeared in the English language at the beginning of the 17th century, to differentiate specific groups of Christians in communion with the Pope from others; comparable terms in other languages already existed. It has continued to be widely used in the English language ever since, although its usage has changed over the centuries. (Source)

And no, the church had nothing to do with Saturnalia, of course, which existed long before Christ. Seriously, do you even think before writing something like that?

I care about was Paul's citizenship was, sorry that you choose to ignore it. Funny how Paul kept his citizenship throughout the whole time he was spreading Jesus' message isn't it? You'd think Rome would take such a traitors citizenship away, but nope, I guess he was too important to them, huh?

Do yourself a favour and do a little research into what Roman citizenship was. You'll answer your own question.

reply to post by adjensen


It's fun to speculate.

I knew Paul was Roman long before I even thought of this thread, take a look through my post history and you'll see that quite clearly. I never said Peter was a Roman citizen, I said he was born in a Roman province, there's a difference, please stop putting words in my mouth.

Jesus didn't meet Peter until he was a grown man, how can you say he didn't grow up to be a Roman loyalist? Moles existed back then just as they today. Is it really that far out there to think that Rome inserted him as a mole? I don't think so, but since you believe everything without question then I'm guessing you will find it hard to believe.

When did I ever say Romans wrote the whole bible? I never said that, what I am saying is that a Roman (Paul) wrote over HALF of the NT. A Roman! A Roman who killed and persecuted Jesus' earliest followers. That doesn't ring a bell in your head as being suspicious? At all? A logical thinking person would see that as a HUGE red flag.

Well, unless Peter the Roman is some 2,000 year old geezer then I doubt he was at the crucifixion. I never said Simon Peter wasn't at the crucifixion either, I know he was. Paul never mentions being at the crucifixion, his first meeting with Jesus was when he went blind in Damascus. If Paul was at the crucifixion he never mentioned it so I assume he means he wasn't there by never mentioning it.

How could Paul's writings not be the word of god? Aren't his writings in the Holy Bible, the one true word of god? If Paul's words aren't those of god then how is he in the bible? The fact you accept his teachings goes to show you believe he was inspired by god.

It's actually really simple, Peter wasn't reinstated until AFTER Jesus rose from the dead. You say he was reinstated the night before his death which is not correct. Read John 19 then John 21 and tell me which comes first, the crucifixion or Peter's reinstatement?

The Roman Catholic Church was the only Christian church at the time, it had no other christian churches to differentiate itself from. Yeah, there are other denominations but the RCC was the first official church. Romans controlled the Catholic church, Christmas originated with the RCC. Romans are the ones who decided what festivals would take place and when. All they did was change the name from Saturnalia to Christmas, the two are almost identical. Romans made that decision, no one else. They had the sole authority to dictate what the church did and why and that's a FACT my friend, it doesn't matter when English started calling it anything because either way it was a church set up by the Romans. Stop trying to squirm your way away from that fact.

People had the ability to lose their Roman citizenship back then, look it up yourself. The question remains, why would Rome not take Paul's citizenship away after defecting to the other side? Maybe because they were using him?

reply to post by 3NL1GHT3N3D1

I think you haven't quite hit on what kind of sign, or sign of what the leaders were asking for.

Consider Moses:

Deuteronomy 29: 2 Moses called to all Israel, and said to them, You have seen all that Yahweh did before your eyes in the land of Egypt to Pharaoh, and to all his servants, and to all his land; 3 the great trials which your eyes saw, the signs, and those great wonders: 4 but Yahweh has not given you a heart to know, and eyes to see, and ears to hear, to this day. 5 I have led you forty years in the wilderness: your clothes have not grown old on you, and your shoes have not grown old on your feet. 6 You have not eaten bread, neither have you drunk wine or strong drink; that you may know that I am Yahweh your God.

Here's a strange theory that I kind of thought of:

What if Jesus actually was the Jewish Messiah? What if a significant portion, say 20% or so, of the Judean population actually considered Jesus to be a spiritual Messiah. He wouldn't have been the first or the last. If you research into spiritual messiahs you will find that a spiritual messiah stays messiah for 40 years after they have died.

As far as actual verifiable history goes, the time between 30 AD - 70 AD seem like a black hole. Maybe I haven't read the right history books or something, but I don't know any history for Judea during that time period.

So suppose 40 years of peace was the result of having a spiritual messiah for those 40 years, one whose teaching included "praying for your enemies" and "doing good to those who despise you"?

Here is a sampling of "false messiahs" who came after Jesus, close to the end of his 40 years peaceful reign:

Menahem, son of Judah of Galilee

Reed claims that Menahem is one of the worst False Messiahs.[10] Menahem was the son of Judas of Galilee according to some authors and historians. He followed the belief of his father that no man could rule, because God was the true ruler.[10] Menahem…obtained weapons from Masada and came to Jerusalem to try to establish some kind of reign.[4] Menahem had a band of devoted cutthroats with him and overpowered those who preferred peaceful Roman rule. Menahem marched into Jerusalem dressed in finery. He entered the temple, killed the high priest, committed all sorts of abominations and was killed by an angry mob.[10]

John of Gischala

The second false messiah is John of Gischala.[10] The man was so violent that anyone who even considered peace with Rome was a traitor. He had thousands killed. He tried to take royal authority in Jerusalem and betrayed his own people in the process.[4] He too entered the temple and killed the high priest. 8,500 people died on the temple grounds the day John took the temple. He appointed a mockery of a high priest, was arrested by Romans in 70 CE and spent the remainder of his life in prison.[10]
Zealotry in Jewish history

According to this theory, it wouldn't have been until after the fall of Jerusalem that stories of a resurrection would have started circulating. Kind of like people saying, "Hey, weren't things better, more peaceful, when we had Jesus as our spiritual Messiah? Wouldn't it be cool if he rose from the dead to be our permanent Messiah? Then we could forget about looking for messiahs. Yeah, that would be cool."

Originally posted by 3NL1GHT3N3D1
Jesus didn't meet Peter until he was a grown man, how can you say he didn't grow up to be a Roman loyalist?

What reason is there to believe that he was? Do you always just assume the worst in people?

A logical thinking person would see that as a HUGE red flag.

A red flag for what? You're throwing all these bizarre notions out there, most of which have no relevance to anything, and you figure it all ties up into some grand conspiracy?

How could Paul's writings not be the word of god? Aren't his writings in the Holy Bible, the one true word of god? If Paul's words aren't those of god then how is he in the bible? The fact you accept his teachings goes to show you believe he was inspired by god.

How do you equate "inspired by god" to "the word of God"? Are you a Fundamentalist? I'm not, so I don't think that the words of Paul are the words of God. Inspired? Yes. From God's mouth to my ears? No.

It's actually really simple, Peter wasn't reinstated until AFTER Jesus rose from the dead. You say he was reinstated the night before his death which is not correct. Read John 19 then John 21 and tell me which comes first, the crucifixion or Peter's reinstatement?

Show me where I said he was reinstated on the night before Jesus' death.

It doesn't matter when English started calling it anything because either way it was a church set up by the Romans.

Kindly define your use of the term "Romans" in that sentence -- when do you think that the Catholic church was founded, and by whom? Not a generic "Romans", but actual peoples' names.

People had the ability to lose their Roman citizenship back then, look it up yourself. The question remains, why would Rome not take Paul's citizenship away after defecting to the other side? Maybe because they were using him?

Defecting to what other side? What are you talking about?

Paul was a Jewish Pharisee who became a Christian. He never had anything to do with the Roman government, and they had no more reason to take away his citizenship (which, if you had researched, you would know rarely happened) for being a Christian than they did when he was a Jew.

reply to post by adjensen


What reason is there to say he was? Well for one he helped Paul to change Jesus' message from love and forgiveness to blind faith and salvation. Where did Jesus ever say you had to believe he died on the cross in order to get into heaven? Nowhere, those are the words of Paul and Peter. Like you insinuated earlier with Peter the Roman, if Jesus didn't say it then why do you believe it so much?

Allowing people to go and suffer for eternity is not Jesus' M.O., he even said on the cross to forgive those who killed him because they didn't know what they were doing. Why would he say forgive them then turn around and send them to hell? Or did the ones who killed Jesus make it into heaven? If so, why would god allow non-believers into heaven? If not then how is sending them to hell forgiving them? If they believed after his resurrection then why would he say to forgive them when he knew they would believe in the end? It's a big conundrum of contradictions.

You know why the Roman citizenship keeps coming up? Because the Romans are the ones who ordered Jesus' death and the ones who killed most of his true followers during the persecutions. Paul was a leading advocate on persecuting Christians at one point if I'm not mistaken. That's the connection, the Roman persecutions and Paul's Roman citizenship. If you don't think that's fishy then you need to clean your nose out.

What exactly is the difference between the inspired word of god and the actual word of god? I didn't realize there was one. Is the difference that the "inspired" word is susceptible to error? What exactly is the difference? Paul says what he wrote was inspired by his visit from the dead Jesus (something which is completely based on hearsay and the word of Paul btw) so, in your opinion, how is Paul's word any different than gods?

I misread your first post on this page, my mistake. I thought you meant he was reinstated the night before his death. My bad. Either way, Peter wasn't reinstated until after Jesus died. Yes, I believe he died on the cross, but I don't believe he resurrected 3 days later. That's one of the pagan themes the Romans put into the story, along with others.

Constantine established the church but his establishment was based on worshiping and having faith that Jesus rose from the dead. Those are the things Paul taught. Even if Paul wasn't around when it was "officially" established, that doesn't mean his teachings didn't form the foundation of the church.

You know, the side that they were killing and raping, the Christian side. Don't play dumb, I know you're smarter than that. If Paul had nothing to do with the Roman government then how was he able to write all these letters to these powerful people and have them received and also saved in order to be put into the bible 300 years later?

reply to post by 3NL1GHT3N3D1


I'm curious, where do you get your theology from? I know that you're no longer a member of a church, but what church did you grow up in? You have some very bizarre ideas of what Christ, Peter and Paul taught, perhaps your background might clear up some of that.

If salvation doesn't come from faith in Christ, where do you think that Jesus teaches it comes from?

And if you're going to try and make a case for the Romans inventing Christianity, you'll need a better founder than Constantine -- he's about 200 years too late. Not only were all the books of the Bible written long before his time, but the writings of non-Apostolic fathers demonstrate that all core Christian concepts, such as baptism, the divinity of Christ, the Eucharist, the nature of salvation and so on, were widely accepted by the Second Century.

reply to post by adjensen

And if you're going to try and make a case for the Romans inventing Christianity, you'll need a better founder than Constantine

The OP may not have read the actual books involved but some of the ideas have filtered around. A couple of the originators of various ideas are mentioned in this review by Robert M. Price

Joseph Atwill's, Caesar’s Messiah: The Roman Conspiracy to Invent Jesus

The controversial thesis of this book is that Christianity began as the opium of the Jewish people, mixed and prescribed for them by the crafty Flavian dynasty. Vespasian, Titus, and Domitian had had their fill of militant Zealotry and Sicariism. ...And so Titus Caesar, with the help of his obedient lackey Josephus, devised a master deception whereby Jews should be seduced into worshipping Titus, divine son of the divine Vespasian, without knowing it, under the guise of a fictitious Jesus, divine son of a divine Father. The gospels were composed by Romans (and Roman stooges including defeated Zealot leader John of Gischala AKA John son of Zebedee) to catechize Jews into this new and false Judaism which, if they accepted it, should also lull them into a soporific pacifism convenient for Rome ... in a cover blurb, Robert Eisenman (a sometime colleague of author Atwill, one hastens to add, on other endeavors) remarks, “If what Joseph Atwill is saying is only partially true, we are looking into the abyss.”
. . .
Eisenman, in his monumental work James the Brother of Jesus, was able to show, from an altogether new perspective, how thoroughly pro-Roman is New Testament faith. Compared with the religion of nationalistic Jewish Christianity it must have seemed the foulest betrayal, an overnight devolution of the faith of a messiah who stormed the temple, condemning its Roman lapdog rulers, into a religion advocating obedience to Caesar, paying him his denarius, and accepting Quisling tax collectors as brothers in the faith

I haven't read all of Atwill's book yet, and I haven't read any of Eisenman, except what's in Wikipedia.

Atwill's main point seems to be that Jewish nationalistic messianism is extremely dangerous and leads to extreme violence. If there were a plan to sidetrack that fanaticism that would be a good thing.

Eisenman seems to think of the zealots as the truly great men, and Paul was bad for being a Herodian and a Roman. Jesus seems irrelevant to Eisenman, James, his brother, is the big hero for the anti-Rome anti-herodian zealots.

I don't know why Peter would factor in. Simon Peter and Simon the Zealot were two different men. Not the same guy.

reply to post by pthena


Would suggest you have a read of this page on Atwill: Caesar's Messiah. I didn't believe it for one minute, but then again, I've done a lot of research into the moronic "Piso Theory" that was promoted by a guy on here, even after I proved to him that it was invented by an anti-Christian lunatic in Washington state in the 1970s. Atwill isn't quite as crazy as Abelard Reuchlin is, but with a similar theory that's 100% speculation, I ain't buyin' it.

reply to post by adjensen


I get my theology from myself, through my own research and insight. I was raised a Baptist but my parents converted to Methodist when I was 13 or 14. But as you said, I don't conform to any denomination now. Lots of things I used to accept I don't accept any longer and my views back then has nothing to do with my views now, they are light years apart as you can probably tell. Yes, my ideas may be radical or bizarre to some, but so were Jesus' when he first started his ministry.

In my opinion "salvation" (if you want to call it that) comes from works. Like Jesus said:

Matthew 19:17
"Why do you ask me about what is good?" Jesus replied. "There is only One who is good. If you want to enter life, keep the commandments."

Works are what matter, Jesus never said anything different. If everyone has faith but no works Earth is what you get, a place full of greed, lies, war, etc. Faith does nothing but keep people ignorant in my opinion.

Of course, Paul's teaching of salvation and the consequences of not having faith scared people into believing it because who wants to suffer and burn forever? Constantine saw that paganism was failing so he went ahead and legalized Christianity, but not before putting pagan themes into the story to make the transition easier for others of the pagan religion at the time. Constantine didn't legalize Christianity because he wanted to do something good, he legalized it to keep political power over the growing Christian religion.

Originally posted by 3NL1GHT3N3D1
In my opinion "salvation" (if you want to call it that) comes from works. Like Jesus said:

Matthew 19:17
"Why do you ask me about what is good?" Jesus replied. "There is only One who is good. If you want to enter life, keep the commandments."

Works are what matter, Jesus never said anything different. If everyone has faith but no works Earth is what you get, a place full of greed, lies, war, etc. Faith does nothing but keep people ignorant in my opinion.

Okay, that's a reasonable perspective. So, in your mind, a Jew who keeps the commandments is saved and goes to heaven?

Of course, Paul's teaching of salvation and the consequences of not having faith scared people into believing it because who wants to suffer and burn forever? Constantine saw that paganism was failing so he went ahead and legalized Christianity, but not before putting pagan themes into the story to make the transition easier for others of the pagan religion at the time. Constantine didn't legalize Christianity because he wanted to do something good, he legalized it to keep political power over the growing Christian religion.

Again, a reasonable position, but legalizing Christianity (which he did) is a far cry from creating it (which he did not.) And you'll need to provide evidence of Constantine "putting pagan themes into the story", as I am not aware of any evidence to support that claim. As I said, the books that now constitute our Bible were written 200 years prior to Constantine, and were in sufficiently wide enough circulation, even outside of the Roman empire, that radical changes to them would be impossible.

reply to post by pthena


We know next to nothing about Simon the Zealot so how can you be so sure they weren't? The 12 apostles is another pagan theme put into the story where Jesus represents the sun and the 12 apostles representing the 12 constellations. I don't think their actually were 12 apostles, maybe 3 or 4 at the most.

reply to post by adjensen


I think we're already in heaven. The conditions on Earth are perfect for life and the universe is most likely abundant with life, everything relies on everything to exist. The universe is the epitome of perfection and complexity, something only heaven and god can be.

What happens when you have faith but not works? You get the lake of fire mentioned in Revelation. The lake of fire is here on Earth and this is what you get without works, you get Satan's playground, where he gets whatever he wants by lying to the masses. Paul's writings are the work of Satan (Peter), a.k.a. man, not god. In my opinion.

Difficult how? It's not like the common people back then had the kind of access to information we do now plus a large part of the population back then was illiterate and couldn't read. Those who were already well off were the ones who could afford the education needed in order to read, so I don't see it being that big of a hurdle to make for them.

The First Council of Nicaea is when they added the themes in my opinion. Did you know that in the 12 years after legalizing the "truth" , Constanine never converted up until he was on his death bed? And his death bed conversion is even in question. You would think that a man who knew he was legalizing "truth" would convert at the same time of legalizing it, but no, he waited a whole 12 years afterward if even at all.

Originally posted by 3NL1GHT3N3D1
reply to post by adjensen

 

I think we're already in heaven. The conditions on Earth are perfect for life and the universe is most likely abundant with life, everything relies on everything to exist. The universe is the epitome of perfection and complexity, something only heaven and god can be.

What happens when you have faith but not works? You get the lake of fire mentioned in Revelation. The lake of fire is here on Earth and this is what you get without works, you get Satan's playground, where he gets whatever he wants by lying to the masses. Paul's writings are the work of Satan (Peter), a.k.a. man, not god. In my opinion.

So we're in heaven and in hell here on Earth, huh? Can't say that makes any sense, but whatever. You didn't answer my question - does a Jew (or anyone, for that matter) who follows the Ten Commandments go to heaven?

Difficult how? It's not like the common people back then had the kind of access to information we do now plus a large part of the population back then was illiterate and couldn't read. Those who were already well off were the ones who could afford the education needed in order to read, so I don't see it being that big of a hurdle to make for them.

As I said, there were thousands of copies of the books of the New Testament in circulation, so if someone wanted to radically change them, they'd have to find every copy in existence, take them away from the people that had them and used them in daily worship, then give them modified versions that significantly altered the teachings, and expect no one to notice.

That's utterly implausible and ridiculous to even contemplate.

The First Council of Nicaea is when they added the themes in my opinion. Did you know that in the 12 years after legalizing the "truth" , Constanine never converted up until he was on his death bed? And his death bed conversion is even in question. You would think that a man who knew he was legalizing "truth" would convert at the same time of legalizing it, but no, he waited a whole 12 years afterward if even at all.

I'm not sold on him ever converting, but I fail to see the significance of it. Constantine wasn't a religious person and did not participate in the Council of Nicaea, apart from telling the Bishops to come to a conclusion. He legalized Christianity because it was growing at a significant rate and it was becoming unrealistic and politically unpopular to continue to persecute Christians, and because of his little episode at the bridge and even that I'm not sold on.

The only thing that the Council of Nicaea resolved was what the divine nature of Christ was. Nothing in the Bible was changed as a result of Nicaea. We have the records of proceedings from the Council as evidence of what they did.

The sign of Jonah is 3 days of darkness. As Jonah was 3 days in the belly of a whale in darkness, Jesus was 3 days in the belly of the earth in darkness. It was a reference to his crucifiction. He was giving them a prophecy.

reply to post by adjensen


It's not really that hard to understand really. Heaven was on Earth before we came along and started screwing everything up. Without all the wars, pollution, and lies, Earth would still be Eden, but because of our works it has turned into hell. We are in the lake of fire now and it is because of our works that we are here. If faith truly saved then why are we here right now?

Mark was the first gospel written and it wasn't written until at least 30 years after Jesus was crucified. Three of the four gospels were written by people who traveled and worked with Peter and Paul after the crucifixion and who never met Jesus, another red flag in my opinion.

Matthew was the only writer of a gospel who actually met Jesus yet his gospel seems to be almost entirely based on the gospel of Mark, someone who never met Jesus. That's a bit strange if you ask me, why would someone who actually met and traveled with Jesus need to copy from someone who had never met Jesus? Your guess is as good as mine.

Every letter Paul wrote was addressed to a Roman, minus maybe Timothy though he was born in Roman Lystra. How could Paul have had the authority to write and have these letters received and preserved by so many powerful people within the Roman Empire? Take a gander, it's really simple.

Paul also held all of his ministries in Roman cities, sometimes spending several years in a location. This was at a time when Rome was still persecuting Christians, the question is: how could Paul have visited all these Roman cities preaching the "true" gospel and not have been killed? The time that he was in prison in Phillipi there was an earthquake and he was set free, how convenient. Peter had a similair experience too, except with an angel. Hmmmm..... Something else that's interesting, why did Herod decide to kill James but not Peter? Convenient that he didn't, otherwise he would have never been saved by that angel. How convenient. Paul was almost killed in Jerusalem as well, "luckily" he was taken into custody by the Romans which is what saved his life.

Is it just a coincidence that the man behind Jesus' capture was named Caiphas? Caiphas means "rock" in Aramic. Funny how Jesus named Simon Cephas which is also "rock" in Aramic. Could they be the same person too?

Like I said earlier, most of the common people from those times were illiterate, they didn't carry a bible around with them. Bibles were usually kept within the church, an easy way for all of them to be found if needed. The bible wasn't as widespread as you probably think, the first mass publication of the bible wasn't until the 1400's.

Yeah, because everyone who commits a crime writes it down afterward for everyone to see, right? Of course they wouldn't let anyone know what they really did, it's ridiculous to think they would have. You put far too much trust in the word of men, though it is interesting that you deny Constantine's vision while accepting Paul's. Double standard?