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Originally Posted by willravel
When discussing Jesus or religion in general, espically with religious people, I would think that attacking the bible, whether your attack has merrit or not, isn't constructive. If one is to discuss something from the perspective of Chsitian (as I am doing), I must cite the bible and other religious texts as fact.
Also Jesus did claim to be the son of God.
-I and my Father are one. John 10:30
-They all asked, "Are you then the Son of God?" He (Jesus) replied, "You are right in saying I am." (Luke 22:70)
-Philip said, "Lord, show us the Father..." Jesus answered: "Don't you know me, Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father ... Don't you believe that I am in the Father, and that the Father is in me?" (John 14:8-10)
-For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. (John 3:16)
-All things have been committed to me by my Father. No one knows who the Son is except the Father, and no one knows who the Father is except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him. (Luke 10:22)
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I am not attacking it, merely pointing out that the words of the Gospels are not direct quotes from Jesus or his disciples. Also, in that context, you show he says he himself is the son of God, but it is not in it's entire scope as he does tell his followers that believe in him is to believe in God and that we are all the children of God.John 3:16 is not the word of Jesus himself(as far as the gospels go), so doesn't really fall into the categories of the others. Depending on what Christian faith you follow, interpretations vary as pointed out-some making Jesus much more humble than those you quote, which of course I won't dispute-just another interpretation of his words. It's actually pretty interesting to go through various versions and pick up the differences.
As to periodicity, Mark is reliably dated to ad 60 - 65, Matthew and Luke to the mid-70's and John to the early 90's. The various texts of these books are remarkably consistent. They also present facts later sustained through archaeology. They are very close to the events they report and can be considered reliable in their reporting.
However, they are not the direct disciples as that would make them close to 90 years old at least and some have placed the books of Luke and John as even later than 90 years-it's just not possible to be entirely accurate age-wise as to what date they were written. In fact, there has been some conjecture that the latter gospels were written using the earlier versions' 'facts' in either a competitive nature to those earlier ones or as a 'clarification'. Who knows....there's now some conjecture that there was a gospel based on Mary Magdalene that was 'rejected' for inclusion to the new testament, along with several other books rejected for various reasons.