That's the part that I'm actually worried about, Christians who are actively seeking to end the fucking world. They want political violence, civil unrest and war in the middle east. It's so fucked.
There is more evidence to support the physical person of Gilgamesh (the epic of whom was stolen almost word for word to create the Torah) than that of a man called Jesus the Christ.
Ie contemporary references, records, documents. Not written 30 -400 years after death.
There’s really no historical proof, outside biblical accounts.
But that doesn’t really mean there’s a need to dismiss it out of hand. There probably was a Jewish mystic faith healer named Jesus (or whatever,); who was executed by the Roman’s for stirring the shit.
There were in fact, a lot of them. (John the Baptist comes to mind,)
Further, his name (and his father’s,) were. Both extremely common. it’s reasonable to assume at least a few were in fact named Jesus, son of Joseph, and apparently from Nazareth.
Together it’s actually not that unlikely. Though he would have had more in common with the sleaziest televangelist faithhealer you can imagine. Joel Osteen, perhaps.
One historical interpretation of the character known as Jesus is the same as the character known as Robin Hood: a collection of folk tales and exaggerations about a handful of people who lived over the course of a century, later attributed all to one person.
I mean, I just assume he was a grifter whose disciples kept on grifting after he died. It should be noted that the earliest anything was written about him specifically was about fifty years after he supposedly died. Which is why there's a lot of retconning going on between the various accounts.
Either way, we know there were a lot of mystics in the area and time in question, and leading up to that, it was the jewish leadership's MO to just knife them and leave their bodies in a ditch somewhere. Which. Romans kinda took issue to that. They don't like incidental and unofficial killings. (and the leaving the bodies in the ditch... untidy!)
So, the jewish leadership had to get "creative" and convince the roman goverment he was a really bad dude. Which. He then started on about being "king of the jews" and that... well... Rome takes issue with rebellion. Totally reasonable to imagine that all happened. What happened next... not so much. but then, he was a grifter and his disciples learned the grift,
Wouldn't it be funny if they end up being right. They destroy the world. Jesus returns. All the left wing/libs go to hell and the conservatives/maga go to heaven. Like you get to intentionally fuck everything up and then enjoy eternal bliss while the people trying to improve the world burn in hell.
Reminds me of a time I had dinner at a girl's house and she insisted on only using Styrofoam plates because the faster we destroy the planet the faster Jesus will come back to save us. I was speechless.
the only people who are 'okay with it' are the overly-optimstic pre-tribs. The post-tribs believe they have to go through the suck too, so, there's that.
Yes. There's a shit load of arguments about whether the rapture happens before, after, or during the tribulations. My favorite position is any-trib. mostly because... wtf?
I, for one, will be voting Trump to hasten the apocalypse. Anything is better than this shit.
Edit: Belated /s
By "this shit" I mean everything stupid since 2016 that feels like it can't possibly be real life and by "the apocalypse" I meant the actual literal coming of hell on Earth where Trump reveals himself as Damien (to no one's surprise) and Satan appears with him condemning all these fake Christians-in-name-only
Fortunately whether you vote for the Toupee or the Toupee's generic opposition, we're doomed either way! One option does delay the doom for a maximum of four years though, so take that into account.
contemporary readers would have understood every anti-christ reference to have meant somebody they'd know and hate.
The antichrist of revelation was understood to be Nero, for example, where Daniel would have been talking about babylon. Remember: we're not the target audience. The target audience was the original audience contemporary to the author. the eschatology of Revelation has already been seen to happen. The world didn't end. the book is wrong. (Insert "it was all allegory anyway" here.)