Sure you are ok with that?
Yes, completely!
I tend to go with the notion that originally we had Sun worship and then a considerable number of human gods appearing all having the same attributes as the Sun....do you accept or reject the notion that there were a few human gods with astrology characteristics or do you think those are stories invented by Satan?
Do you see the conclusion one must reach if astrology based human gods were somewhat common place?
That is a possible conclusion.
Another thought is perhaps, that a few of the attributes of God can be universally seen by all of mankind in creation itself. Perhaps enough to know there is a God, and to see some of His attributes, but not enough to know everything about Him.
So, if this is correct, you could and perhaps likely would see the existence of numerous different religions and beliefs in history like astrology that have at least some of God’s attributes in common. As people try and figure Him out and try to understand.
You did not say if we should call the brother of Jesus his half brother nor if he was older or younger.
Apparently, James would have been younger, since Jesus would have been, according to the accounts, the firstborn of Mary. I don’t know if “half brother” would be a common, normal expression for that time and place. So not sure that is a problem. Would that have been a derogatory term and not used much, I certainly do not know?
In any event let's take 20 years as the period between events and recording...I would not like to write a true account of something 20 years ago...how could you know such reporting was reliable? And as I asked and you have not answered..
Yes, I agree! You know all of this already...
Differences between our time and culture and theirs, over about 2000 years, mean there should be differences in many things.
That is what we should expect to find, right?
Differences in thought, expectations of others, available technology for communication. Perhaps the records we have are just appropriate for the time and culture.
As you know the printing press did not exist, word of mouth, would have been the normal communication method for the time. There may have been earlier eye witness written records that we don’t have.
And the idea behind the New Testament documents we do have, especially the four gospels is that they were, as claimed, carefully researched and verified by the eye witnesses of the events, as that generation was beginning to die off.
Because, just as you said, these would have been important events to preserve in written document form for future generations, not yet alive.
why would such an event not get written about at the time? Why would such an event not be news that spread like wild fire right across the known world..heck you could expect such news to get to China...why is that?
The Jewish authorities should have been able to produce the body of Jesus immediately to suppress the resurrection and spread of Christianity, which would have been a threat to their control and power. And that should also have been in the written records of the time.
Do you know of any such records?
Perhaps China new all about these events from word of mouth. A God matching the attributes of the God of the Old Testament apparently was worshipped in ancient China under a different name.
According to the gospels, the people of the East saw and understood that Jesus had been born, from studying signs in the Stars. I don’t know how? And elements of the gospel, are imbedded in their own written symbolism, they use today everyday.
If someone died today and was dead for three days in these times do you think it would be news..why wasn't it news back then?
Yes, I agree!
Perhaps the day is coming in the future when similar events will happen again and perhaps they will be all over the news then. If some of the prophecies in the Bible are true and are correctly understood? Not easy to do!
But in that time and culture, there was no “News” like we have today.