Part of the conversation that interested me, btw, is that of Cultural Christians... those who live by Jesus' parables of morals and ethics without identifying as believers.

Those sayings only seem like common sense to them.

"I mean, I think basically that most of
us in this country are cultural
Christians just instinctively.

Uh, and I
think there is no one who's more
culturally Christian than the atheist...

who says, "I don't need some, you know,
bronze age sky [music] fairy telling me
how to behave because I just know how to
behave. I'm a good person.

I don't need
the Bible to tell me to care for the
weak and the poor and the refugee...
manifesting the fact that they are the
result of centuries worth of biblical
weathering.

So in a sense, [applause]
in a sense to be a cultural Christian is
still to believe stuff.

It's still to believe stuff that to say
a Roman, a pre-Christian Roman would
have seemed mad and not at all
self-evident."

- Tom Holland (about 5 mins in)

(you'll need to restart the link in #1... my Editor sucks)

#4

If they did, they didn't do a very good job, as Josephus is more often used as not proof than proof, as there are some caveats in his work due to poor or intentionally dishonest scribes.

I've never heard it before, but this conspiracy canard apparently originates in one place and time, a 2005 book.

- The Bible was written centuries later by people who realized it was a great way to control others.

Decades later... Paul within one or two, the rest within 2 to 4.

What did you think of secular historian Tom Holland's take on cultural Christianity?