What are some good sources that put Christianity and the Bible into a historical context?

>JEEEEZUS WUZ A JOOO! A JOOOO!

.t Joo.

And why wouldn't he be, both parents who raised him were Jewish

Seriously, Maccoby argues that Jesus was a Pharisee. It's ridiculous.

Joseph us is a good primary source. Ethnic Jew indifferent to Christianity from the time. Mostly talked about the Roman-Jewish Wars.

31 At that time some Pharisees came to Jesus and said to him, “Leave this place and go somewhere else. Herod wants to kill you.”

32 He replied, “Go tell that fox, ‘I will keep on driving out demons and healing people today and tomorrow, and on the third day I will reach my goal.’ 33 In any case, I must press on today and tomorrow and the next day—for surely no prophet can die outside Jerusalem!

>Pharisees aren't Jews
When will this meme end. They were Jews but just a radical sect that spread up not a 100 years before the birth of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ, Amen

>trusting a Syrian rebel
>Herod
How many Herods are in the bible?

They were the mainstream sect of Jews, actually; all mainstream modern Judaic sects descend from the Pharisees.

But it's stupid to think that Christ, who spent so much time criticizing the Pharisees, would actually be one, or that every Christian writer and thinker of the first 5 centuries or so would all be wrong about the dividing lines among contemporary Jewish sects, which is what Mr. Maccoby idiotically asserts.

I came to this thread to recommend Bart Ehrman as well. I have him for my Bew Testament course, and while he is clearly biased at times (he's an atheist), he does a good, if unnecessarily stretched out and long, account of at least the N. Test.'s historicity and historical context.

Check out Bart Ehrman's stuff. He's probably the best at this subject.

youtube.com/watch?v=vMo5R5pLPBE

None of it

It's all bullshit

This

Me
Here are my spiels:
Humans accessed technology of eternal life...thousands of years earlier than now. The humans living thousands of years mingled, cooperated, conflicted, and married humans not accessing technology of eternal life. The humans living thousands of years were savage by their reliance of controlled-flexing technologies of electricity caused at body so muscle flexing was planned by computer. They learned simple methods of forcing eternal life. One method was that all humans would be forced to live since if all humans live then humans living thousands of years would be one of those humans living. This method is so simple...some believe all the history/herstory of humans dying was while the savages were forced to live their best try to force all humans live.
---------_________---------
Humans had technology to live eternal life since thousands of years earlier than now.

Paranormal, religious testaments, mythologies, and parapsychology are records/influenced of humans, with technology of eternal life, interacting with humans who were not possessing technology of eternal life. Another text to say this: humans who didn't have technology of eternal life have explained their experiences, with humans who have technology of eternal life, as religion, mythology, parapsychology, paranormal, and psi.

A realistic evaluation of the humans who believe/work of god, gods, religion, mythology, parapsychology, and psi is SOMETHING HAPPENED TO CAUSE THESE BELIEFS. Humans saw, heard, felt, smelt, and/or tasted SOMETHING; humans were not imagining...daydreaming...or fantasizing.

Generally, humans seem to do technology...so a simple realistic evaluation of believers of god, gods, religion, mythology, parapsychology, and psi?..they are living in a universe where humans have technologies to cause what an other human would experience as god, gods, religion, mythology, parapsychology, and psi.

It's a bit outdated, but here:
archive.is/dnM8C
youtube.com/playlist?list=PLYFBLkHop2alFacrvkn2qtR3y1D2fQmad
ccel.org/ccel/pearse/morefathers/files/aristides_03_preface.htm
livescience.com/56300-gate-shrine-excavated-in-israel.html
youtube.com/playlist?list=PLBby84KboLbEdifinKsIFqQXtI70kWucr
youtube.com/playlist?list=PLFArOXRggsaySjtmY6eqEboeyD9ZcEpV1

...

Online videos:

Yale course on old testament: youtube.com/watch?v=mo-YL-lv3RY&index=1&list=PLh9mgdi4rNeyuvTEbD-Ei0JdMUujXfyWi
Harvard course on old testament: ruml.com/thehebrewbible/
Yale course on new testament: oyc.yale.edu/religious-studies/rlst-152

Some books I like (keep in mind I'm not a scholar on this, just an interested amateur):
"How to read the Bible" by James Kugel (textual analysis of the old testament)
"The Bible Unearthed" by Israel Finkelstein (archaeology of the old testament)
"Jesus: Apocalyptic Prophet of the New Millenium" by Bart Ehrman (textual analysis of the gospels with a focus on the historical Jesus)

Fucking cool. Thanks dudes