Biblical scholar Bart D. Ehrman relates that in the introduction to his textbook on the New Testament, he describes an important figure from the first century without first revealing he is writing about the stories attached to Apollonius of Tyana:
Even before he was born, it was known that he would be someone special. A supernatural being informed his mother the child she was to conceive would not be a mere mortal but would be divine. He was born miraculously, and he became an unusually precocious young man. As an adult he left home and went on an itinerant preaching ministry, urging his listeners to live, not for the material things of this world, but for what is spiritual. He gathered a number of disciples around him, who became convinced that his teachings were divinely inspired, in no small part because he himself was divine. He proved it to them by doing many miracles, healing the sick, casting out demons, and raising the dead. But at the end of his life he roused opposition, and his enemies delivered him over to the Roman authorities for judgment, but unlike Jesus was not crucified, as he vanished from the courtroom and reappeared in another place days later where he was seen by his followers, and convinced them that he was not really dead, but lived on in the heavenly realm. Later some of his followers wrote books about him.
In his book "Did Jesus Exist?" Ehrman goes on to say that Apollonius and Jesus were real persons and that Apollonius' followers believed Jesus to be a fraud.
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Apollonius the Greek had long time campion and friend named Damas — could this be the Thomas in the gospel of Thomas which was written in Greek as were the Gospels?
Apollonius was also considered anti-semetic like Jesus but for the simple fact that he was a vegetarian who was vehemently opposed to blood sacrifice. He teachings were non-polemic and subtle in their essesnce — unlike the Jewish Jesus.
Looks like Rome’s Bible May be BS which would make the KJV BS as well.
They may have scorched the Library at Alexandria to destroy as much evidence as possible of the Mystery Man of Tyana.
