Fans pour funding into ‘The Chosen’

If you've not had the experience, I strongly recommend attending a Stations of the Cross in a Catholic cathedral on a Good Friday if possible. You'll see what the movie is derived from far better, and the Catholics know how to put on a good show.

This is essentially a few decades after the fact.

It's very challenging to really try to push Mathews gospel much further than 80s AD - and even that date has some serious problems.

You seem to have cherry picked certain (older) views... it was certainly popular in the last century to try try push the dates well into the second century but this approach is very fraught and can't be well supported at present.

That passage appears in the context of Jesus and his disciples making the pilgrimage to Jerusalem to celebrate Passa, which takes place in April. Just after the fig tree incident comes the purification of the temple.

Everyone who has a fig tree in the garden knows that some varieties bear an early crop, which is what Jesus was hoping to find. And no one swears at trees, as the webcomic helpfully points out.

The only possible interpretation is that that tree wasn't a fruit tree at all but some random wild tree from the fig genus that doesn't bear edible fruit. The Jesus that appears in the gospels is averse to showy and thoughtless practice, and this is yet another instance.

Everyone knows this. They're just not going to use an awkwardly-long term to refer to them. We don't refer to "members of the Roman catholic church", we just say catholics.

(And for anyone else wondering what all the pedantic fuss is about the name "Mormon", there's some good background here: https://www.sltrib.com/religion/2021/10/13/jana-riess-battle... .)

I’m an exmo, so I’m well aware of what Mormon means. Including that it was widely accepted as an informal demonym for many years by LDS church leaders, and only recently became officially anathema. The reasoning presented for the change has not been terribly sound, I’m afraid, and I wouldn’t be surprised if a future prophet reversed it, as other decisions have been reversed.

Nicely done.

It was divisive in the early church. Marcion of Sinope who compiled what might be the first known canon was a proponent that the god from the Old Testament and the one from the New Testament are different in the second century. He had quite a following but all his writings are lost. He was excommunicated for this view but Marcionism had a lasting influence on the church.

Just did a deep dive into the Bible, several versions (King James, etc.). No "Mormon" shows up anywhere in the text of the Old or New Testaments.

"Mormon" only shows up in the Book of Mormon, which most Christians do not accept as doctrine.

Through a peculiar turn of events, the nickname for members of Church which is widely used today is “Mormons,”

Because this was the term that Mormons themselves used to refer to themselves for over a century, see for example the (fka) Mormon Choir, the Mormon College, etc. It is only very recently that they began shifting their own self-identification away from the use of Mormon.

There certainly is. In fact, at one point, Jesus even brings up Sodom as an example!

See Matthew 23, where Jesus calls the scribes and Pharisees "children of hell" and says that all the righteous blood shed since Abel will be required of them, prophesying the Siege of Jerusalem and the destruction of the temple ("not one stone will be left upon another.") Or the famous incident where he drives people out of the temple with a whip. Or when he says hate is the same sin as murder and lust the same as adultery, and those who commit them will end up in hellfire (in the Sermon on the Mount, no less.)

Or the reason he so enraged the Jewish authorities, he repeated claims that they were going to lose the kingdom. For example, after he healed the centurion's servant: "When Jesus heard it, he marvelled, and said to them that followed, Verily I say unto you, I have not found so great faith, no, not in Israel. And I say unto you, That many shall come from the east and west, and shall sit down with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, in the kingdom of heaven. But the children of the kingdom shall be cast out into outer darkness: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth."

Or when he says the Capernaum is going to have a worse time than Sodom: " And thou, Capernaum, which art exalted unto heaven, shalt be brought down to hell: for if the mighty works, which have been done in thee, had been done in Sodom, it would have remained until this day. But I say unto you, That it shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom in the day of judgment, than for thee."

Or his comments on people that don't forgive: "And his lord was wroth, and delivered him to the tormentors, till he should pay all that was due unto him. So likewise shall my heavenly Father do also unto you, if ye from your hearts forgive not every one his brother their trespasses."

Or the Parable of the Vineyard.

Or this particular memorable castigation from John: "Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it."

This is a view in the popular imagination, but it isn't really supportable after reading the gospels.

Self sacrifice can be noble, though in my experience it can also become destructive. Biblical teachings--sometimes explicitly--proscribe things like putting unverifiable authorities above ones closest family and friends, poverty, never closely associating with non-believers, and faith without evidence.