definition of 'pagan' during biblical times

I think it's obvious that when Jesus mentioned "pagans" that he wasn't talking about the followers of the many Pagan religions, seeing as how its only a common noun when translated and never capitalized. and Jesus wasn't one to bash followers of other religions..

so what exactly did he mean by the term?

 

pagan, from latin term indicating country-dweller.

 

You'd have to ask Mel Gibson. He seems to speak ancient Aramaic...

 

You might like to learn just a little about the supposed jesus before going too much further. The supposed jesus never made any reference to "pagan" in any way, shape, form, or time.
The derogatory useage of "pagan" was instigated by the early church in reference to those who followed archaic religious principles, principles that showed christianity up for what it really was ~ a false religion based upon falsified history and plagiarized doctrines and edicts stolen from pre-existing religious foundations.
Even today christianity makes claim of ownership over Judaism!! And that's as false as you can ever get!
Hey buddy ~ wanna buy a building?
Going cheap!

 

Jesus referred to 'pagans' at least twice in Matthew alone..

but how could one learn about Jesus from something other than the bible? if there were other documents written by other people about Jesus while he was living, wouldn't they have become part of the bible?

 

depends on what kind of bible you're using. Get a KJV.

 

Pagan = Hillbilly basicly. When the church was converting europe all the Hillbillies were slower to convert...then Pagan came to be a term that means non-christian.......I always thought it was funny that Neo-Pagans are New Hillbillies.(no offense of course)

 

Nothing was written about Jesus while he was living, or at least if there was we don't have it now.

The earliest written reference to him is in the epistles (written about 50 ad).

Actually the people who put the new testement together ( the catholic church) as we have it now were very selective about which books to include.

shortly after the birth of christianity the religion split into two camps; the dieists--those who belived Jesus was actually God,
and those who didn't--generally refered to as "gnostics".

At the council of Niccene (ad 325), Emporer constantine ordered the Bishops to come together and iron out their differences in order to form a catholic (universal) form of christiany.

The Dieists won out and later, when they put together the new testement, they carefully chose those gospels and versions of the gospels that fell in line with their beliefs.

all other gospels (and whatever versions of the present gospels the gnostics and non-diesists were using) were subsuquentally ordered gathered and burned.