Stone Tablet questions origins of Christianity.

That's just it: very little is known about who wrote what, how it was edited, and what was changed to fit whoever's personal or royal biases. Even the very earliest Greek versions of the NT may well have been altered to make them more appealing to whoever they were trying to convert. And then, when you look at the OT, who knows how much of that was changed, translated, or came from a broad oral tradition. It is what makes the study so interesting and so frustrating at the same time.

Say that John had a dream. He then wrote down part of that dream, and told the rest to an assistant. Already you have a second hand account, right off the bat. Nothing in the Bible would be considered evidence in a court of law.

Thanks for the article and the link, I enjoyed it very much. I don't really have to add much to the conversation going on here, but I gotta say, it is one of the better conversations I've ever read on here. Lots and lots of new interesting viewpoints, and no squabbling! It's beautiful!

RedBstrd and coyotemike you are both correct in saying it was in the form of a dream to John and that is a popular belief. There is also a version of the end times from the Angel Gabriel which is quite different. That book was left out of the Christian bible, at least I think it was called the Book of Gabriel. I would need to refer back to the History channel website to concur. I learned a lot watching the program Banned from the Bible, but would like to investigate more deeply some of the books mentioned.

I'm just reluctant to put forth that assertion without a scholarly or textual basis for doing so. It seems to fit, but I can't posit my intuitions (or popular beliefs) as fact.

In these cases, intuition, psychology, and history of the surrounding areas are all that scholars have to go on. You basically have to figure out, is this something I would have done at this time, this place, and this mindset. If the answer is no, then chances are more likely that it didn't, if you can put yourself into the proper frame of mind.

Considering Thomas was a disciple (hence the phrase in our language "Doubting Thomas", because Thomas was the one who took the most convincing of the resurrected Christ), and to my knowledge there is no secure account of what happened to Thomas during the early church years (I believe this is what allows for the apocryphal stories that keep cropping up about Thomas going to India), his may very well be a first-hand account. If we accept Q-theory, and most biblical scholars do, Q might very well be a direct compilation of quotes from Jesus as well. Unfortunately, a copy of Q has never emerged.

If I may throw something else into the mix . . .

There is a place in India that the local population call The Tomb of Jesus. They claim that instead of dying on the cross, he left Israel and travelled to India, where he set up shop teaching people and eventually died, much older than the 33 normally accepted by European Christians.

Now who's confused?