Did Jesus Exist?

Well, Tacitus wrote about him about a hundred years later, and I doubt Tacitus was a fanboy.

[quote]Consuela

Oh, dear.

For r2.

It's heartening to see most people here, 60% at this point, in the Jesus was just a man camp.

In her autobiography, Helen Reddy said she told Andrew Lloyd Webber to his face that she disliked “I Don’t Know How To Love Him” and called it “a whiny song built around a vocally awkward major sixth.”

R1, Tacitus, if he truly wrote about Jesus himself, just uncritically borrowed from other sources.

He didn’t witness Jesus personally obviously. 100 years is a long time.

Would you believe the accuracy of someone’s existence if the first reference in history is 100 years later?

R4, because the whole concept of God is utter BS made up to control people

He was a born again preacher, obviously.

We know that R7 but from much vocal squawking here it often seems more popular than it clearly is.

Jesus was composite of many figures of past. Beside, The Jesus figure wasn’t his name. It was Yeshua or Joshua. Yo Josh!!!!

Other thing to note; Nazareth did not exist then. In other words, the town was never real and the one we identify now was created by Constantine’s mother.

You are a lunatic, r10.

Shouldn’t the anti-Islam trolls with their fake data (57 Muslim countries put gays to death!) show up by now?

Yes, Jesus was likely a composite of at least two self-proclaimed messiahs of the period.

In the Middle East at the time, because they were sure it was the end of days, many cults figures emerged claiming to be the messiah. Magic was a common tool to convince followers (the supposed miracles).

It is from this milieu that came the idea of Jesus

You have absolutely no evidence of that theory, r13.

R12, you are a homophobe if you deny Islamic complicity in gay genocide. Denying this is literally on a par with Holocaust denial. It is Holocaust denial because THE HOLOCAUST NEVER ENDED FOR GAY PEOPLE!

Hilariously enough, r12 is the OP of today's whining "Being Muslim in the US" thread, as well as the OP of today's illiterate "Why DLers defend Christianity?" thread. As well as being the same one here who claims Tacitus was a know-nothing fake historian who is not to be taken seriously.

This is causation, not correlation.

Take that shit elsewhere.

AND, r12 has just started a new thread "Christianity hates gays"

There are NO historical records or writings of anyone who were around at the time.

Jesus is as fake as Santa, even more fake.

That's not a logical conclusion. Just because there are no contemporary historical records of a person in the ancient world does not mean that person did not exist. Very few people were important enough for that.

Scary christian at R21.

EVERY man hung on a cross had his name recorded save the one the scary christians like to pretend is real.

[quote] EVERY man hung on a cross had his name recorded save the one the scary christians like to pretend is real.

Then it should be really easy to show us those records of all the men crucified. Go ahead. I'll wait.

In spite of what most people believe, there’s not one tiny iota of evidence demonstrating an historical Jesus. Not one.

Tacitus did not write about him. That passage is probably a Christian interpolation, but even if it’s not, it says nothing at all about Jesus.

The only honest response to your question, OP is....”Nobody knows”. He may have done, he may not.

Jesus may have done what?

All scholars of history would agree that Paul wrote letters to Christian churches 20 years after Jesus's death. In those letters Paul refers to Jesus and his meetings with Jesus's brother and people who knew Jesus like Peter and John. That is evidence.

R23 The Roman record is actually enormous - because of this it’s one of the most attested eras in ancient history.

R25 Existed. Sorry if I worded it clumsily.

R26 “In those letters Paul refers to Jesus and his meetings with Jesus's brother and people who knew Jesus like Peter and John. That is evidence”

This is simply untrue.

[quote] The Roman record is actually enormous - because of this it’s one of the most attested eras in ancient history.

Again, show it.

Only an idiot would ask that, R29. I cannot present the Roman record on a DL thread. How fucking stupid.

Show EVIDENCE that such a record exists, r30.

Here’s a good resource:

https://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/ancient/asbook09.asp

[quote] This is simply untrue.

Which part? Scholars don't think the letters are authentic? Paul doesn't mention Jesus, Peter, or John? What?

What are you trying to link to, r32?

r24, Tacitus most certainly did write about Jesus, and mentioned him by name. He clearly had an opinion about him and his followers too- he wasn't a fan. It was part of his history of Nero's blaming the Christians for the Great fire of Rome (you know, the one during which Nero was rumoured to fiddle).

R23 if you are a historian you can access the records. Not everything has a link, especially ancient history.

Show me evidence that these extensive records of crucifixions exist, r36. I dont need to see them all. I just need evidence they exist.

I think it's based on a real guy. He wasn't "the son of God" and he didn't rise from the grave...if you're asking for opinions on that one. There's no real evidence from his lifetime (as there isn't for most common people), but I don't think someone just completely made him up a generation later, either.

R33 Most of the letters atteibuted to Paul were not written by him, but later Christians. (This is accepted fact by all historians). Only 7 are likely written by him.

Nowhere (in the authentic Paul letters) does he say anything whatsoever about meeting with anyone who knew Jesus. There is a passing reference to “Jesus, Brother Of The Lord” but it’s debatable what is meant by that. A “Brother of the Lord” was also the way Christians were referred to, so it’s ambiguous. James was a very common name.

Not only that, the authentic Paul letters do not even show that Paul knew Jesus had ever existed as a human being on Earth. Seriously...go read them. He says that everything he knows about Jesus came to him via dreams and revelations - not conversations with people who knew him.

I know scholars believe 7 were written by him. I never said anything else.

I know Paul did not know Jesus. I never said anything else.

In Galatians 2 Paul is very clear that he met with Peter, James, and John.

In Galatians 1 Paul says he met James, the brother of the Lord. He nowhere anywhere else refers to a specific person as the brother of the lord.

R35 Tacitus did not mention Jesus by name. He mentioned Christians...he said they were named after Christus who was put to death by Pilate.

This is not evidence that Jesus existed. It’s evidence (if it’s authentic) that there were Christians around who believed in Christ.

Tacitus was writing nearly a century later so wasn’t getting his information first hand.

We already know that Christians existed from Paul & other historians so Tacitus adds nothing. He’s also including this in a passage about an event that never happened (Nero blaming the Christians for Rome burning).

R37 Do you think that the only information about Roman crucifixion comes from the Bible?

There are other sources - many, many contemporary historians of the time - who tell us about all sorts of things. Including. Messiah claimants & people who were crucified.

If you were hoping for log books, forget it. The Roman record exists in many different forms, and it’s enormous.

R1: Tacitus did not 'write about Jesus'. He mentioned, pretty casually, that the followers of someone, who *might* have been Jesus, were causing trouble in Judea. And this was, as mentioned above, about a hundred years after the supposed time of death of the supposed Jesus.

R40 The Brothers of the Lord business is interesting...but it is too ambiguous to be evidence.

Paul (in Romans 8:29) references Christians being brothers of the Lord. At no point does he ever make any distinction between spiritual brother of the Lord and biological brother of the Lord.

Given that he’s already told us that spiritual brothers of the Lord exist it seems very odd that he would use the same phrase for such a significantly different relationship.

Also, the Peter and John you are referencing were Apostles. The Apostles were not the disciples with the same names in the gospels.. The Peter and John that Paul talks about did not meet Jesus, and no historian suggests that they did.

[quote] [R37] Do you think that the only information about Roman crucifixion comes from the Bible?

Where did I say anything remotely like that.

[quote] There are other sources - many, many contemporary historians of the time - who tell us about all sorts of things. Including. Messiah claimants & people who were crucified.

Not in dispute.

[quote] If you were hoping for log books, forget it. The Roman record exists in many different forms, and it’s enormous.

I was asking for evidence that Rome kept meticulous records of who was crucified. because I was told that they did and Jesus did not appear in those records.

He did. He died in 2013, unappreciated.

Romans 8:29 does not say "Brother(s) of our lord." It does call Christians brothers and sisters, which is not in dispute. Paul only calls James "the Brother of our Lord." In the same passage in Galatians he does not call John or Peter "the brother of our Lord."

And I'd love to see evidence this Peter and John are no the Peter and John in the Gospels.

Best I can say in that case, R45, is that maybe that poster doesn’t really understand the nature of the Roman record. Neat log books would be nice, but we don’t have them.

Even if we did & found a Jesus on there, it would be meaningless. It was a very common name.

What we do know, historically, is that the trial presided over by Pilate never happened.

R48 Believers are best ignored. No matter what you offer there will be demands for more proof, other proof, all of this for a sky fairy they cannot prove ever existed.

R47 What evidence do you want? Book recommendations?

The Jerusalem group are not considered, by anyone, to be the same disciples Jesus collected around him. Apart from anything else, the details given about them elsewhere in the epistles rule them out. This is non-controversial and easily googleable.

The “brother of the Lord” thing is...as I said...ambiguous. Given that Paul considered all baptised Christians to be the Lord’s brother it hard to make a conclusive case that, in that one unique instance, he meant something else entirely...and something far more significant.

But he may have meant Jesus’s literal brother. I think, fairly equally, he may not.

But as actual evidence that Jesus existed historically, it’s slim pickings indeed.

[quote] The Jerusalem group are not considered, by anyone, to be the same disciples Jesus collected around him. Apart from anything else, the details given about them elsewhere in the epistles rule them out. This is non-controversial and easily googleable.

Then link me. Cause I'm not finding that.

I dont see how the evidence on Brother of our Lord is ambiguous.

OK.....give me half an hour and I’ll try and dig up a respectable link for you. There’s a lot of crap online about all this & I could accidentally give you something unhelpful.

I’ll also explain what I mean about the ambiguity better.

You're telling me that Jesus didn't have an Instagram account? That there's not a single selfie of him with the Sea of Galilea as a backdrop? No Tweets from the Temple? That he wasn't even tagged on someone else's Facebook?

Then there's no fucking way he could have existed.

The Alexander Romance bears a striking similarity to the stories surrounding Jesus. There were also stories just like the Jesus story throughout the Middle and Near East for centuries before the Christian era. It's likely that Jesus was created by the followers of a particular sect or cult using these older myths. And as someone mentioned up thread, there are no contemporary reports of a Jesus Christ living in Palestine by the culturally and politically dominant Romans/Greeks. That's strange.

The Romans are believed to have crucified many thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands, or even more. But there is physical evidence of only one crucifixion using nails. It was only discovered in 1968. It is a heel bone with an iron nail through it. The nail apparently bent when hammered in, making the nail too difficult to later extract.

Nails were expensive and crucifixion nails also were thought to be good luck, though not for the crucified, so they are rare.

Ancient times propaganda.

[quote] R22: EVERY man hung on a cross had his name recorded save the one the scary christians like to pretend is real.

I don't believe this. Certainly these lists, if they ever existed, have mostly not survived to this day. Besides, people who were crucified were the lowest of low criminals. They were no one to memorialize. The value of the parchment to record their names would have exceeded the value of these men’s lives.

[quote] R54: And as someone mentioned up thread, there are no contemporary reports of a Jesus Christ living in Palestine by the culturally and politically dominant Romans/Greeks. That's strange.

No, it’s not at all strange. It actually would be quite strange if there were contemporaneous reports of Jesus Christ living in Palestine by the culturally and politically dominant Romans/Greeks, or by anyone.

Jesus died with 11 male followers who all initially deserted him when he was arrested. He had some female followers, including his mother. He had attracted a less committed mass of fair-weather followers in life, but they didn’t seem to be too committed. He died as an impoverished, discredited, criminal. The Jewish religious leaders and Romans all wanted him forgotten. There is absolutely no reason there would be a contemporaneous record of his life.

R5 and Helen Reddy can go fuck themselves!

Jesus was a composite drawn from previous messianic cults.

Just to add to R58:

Who would, then merit a contemporaneous record? Pontius Pilate was the fifth prefect of the Roman province of Judaea, serving under Emperor Tiberius for ten years from AD 26/27 to 36/37. He was obviously a very important man. The sources for Pilate's life are an inscription known as the Pilate Stone (discovered only in 1961), which confirms his historicity and establishes his title as prefect; a brief mention by Tacitus; Philo of Alexandria; and Josephus. Only the Pilate Stone and the account of Philo might be considered as “contemporaneous”. Tacitus; and Josephus were after the fact.

The point being, one shouldn’t expect contemporaneous proof like some seem to expect.

Most historians are led to believe that Jesus existed in part because of the way the early Christian writers deal with inconvenient parts of the narrative. For example, three of the gospels have to confront the fact that the messiah is supposed to have been born in Bethlehem. In Matthew, jesus’s family is from Bethlehem and is forced to flee to Galilee. Luke has the family from Galilee and invents a difficulty’s census to get them to Bethlehem for Jesus’s birth. In John, the crowd ridiculed the notion tha Jesus is the messiah because they say he’s from Galilee and not Bethlehem. If he were a totally invented character, it would have been easy to simply say “Jesus was from Bethlehem.” The fact that the gospel writers have to deal with the fact that he was clearly not from Bethlehem is part of the evidence historians look at. His baptism by John the Baptist, the crucifixion, etc. are others.

That's an interesting point, r62.

R62 brings up an interesting point, though, in that the New Testament accounts of Jesus should also be considered as evidence of his existence, but are often completely discarded. This always leads me to comment that there is absolutely no evidence that Jesus ever existed, [italic] after you have discounted all the evidence that there is that he did. [/italic]

It’s no secret that the Gospels were written after Jesus died, were not written by his original disciples, conflict with each other in many places, and were written within the context of the times they were written in. Of course, the biblical texts aren’t up to modern standards of “evidence”. But as R62 notes, people who know what they are doing are able to draw various conclusions from what is known.

Happy Easter!

Who was hotter? Jesus or Mithras?

who is Consuela? would she do windows?

I love you R3 😆

He may have at one time but he sure as fuck hasn't existed for two millennia.

The story goes that Pilate‘s wife had warned him not to be involved in the condemnation of Jesus. There are some Christian traditions that she later converted to Christianity, and is Sainted.

I like the depiction of Pilate in one of the movies where he calls for a slave with a wash bowl to ritually “wash his hands” of the decision to condemn Jesus. After more dialog, he again calls for a slave with a wash bowl to wash his hands. When he is told that he has already done so, he says something like “I did? Well, so I did.”, indicating a guilty conscience.

The other legend I like is about Longinus, the Roman Centurion who pierced the side of Jesus, to hasten his death. He is said to have converted to Christianity, and was Sainted. There is also the myth that he walks the Earth to this day as punishment, unable to die.

Peter and Paul were also said to have converted the Centurions who were their Roman jailers.

Mithras by a wide margin

The stories about the Romans converting to Christianity are self-serving stories meant to broaden Christianity’s apppeal to pagan Romans. As Christianity began to split up with Judaism in the late 1st century, the Romans in the gospels were painted in a more generous light and the Jews in the gospels were painted in a less favorable light. The oldest gospel, John, is notoriously anti Semitic. I’m sure Jesus would be appalled toearn that the Romans who were responsible for killing him were given absolution and in some cases sainthood by his later followers. The real Pilate was an absolute monster who bears little resemblance to the Pilate of the gospels.

R72, Matthew is the notoriously anti-Semitic (“his blood is upon us”) gospel; Mark is usually thought to be the oldest.

The only way to absolutely, without a doubt, prove the existence of Christ is for Christ to return to earth as he promised. We've been waiting almost two thousand years for that to happen so draw your own conclusions.

Yes sorry R73 I meant to say that John was the latest gospel. As you said there’s plenty of anti-semitism in Matthew’s gospel as well.

[quote]The only way to absolutely, without a doubt, prove the existence of Christ is for Christ to return to earth as he promised.

By then it will be too late for everyone who has denied it, so logically it is better to believe by relying on the evidence already at hand. Maranatha.

R74, I’m sure that God will give you’re complaint all the consideration it deserves.

Does Donald Trump believe in Jesus? Is Donald Trump one of the "rightly guided" presidents? Is he a godly exemplar to Christians everywhere?

Yes, well R76 heaven for climate, hell for company.

[quote] Does Donald Trump believe in Jesus? Is Donald Trump one of the "rightly guided" presidents? Is he a godly exemplar to Christians everywhere?

As a candidate, Trump had to ask someone what his demonization was. He was told Congregational, and he then asked “But that’s Christian, right?” He knows nothing about Christianity and doesn’t attend Church.

[quote] He knows nothing about Christianity and doesn’t attend Church.

He is one of the country's most prominent Christians. Jim Bakker and James Dobson have said so.

Trump is the imperfect vessel, so he will only be judged by the results.

Mithras was way hotter, he had a hairy chest and no diaper when he was executed.

According to OP photo Jesus was a homosexual!

Mithras occasionally showed peen, which Jesus never did.

R14, but you have evidence Jesus existed?

The composite idea comes from many Christian scholars

Interesting how Christ and Krishna of Hindu mythology are so similar— virgin births, born to bring redemption, and even the names are so similar

You know Jesus was executed naked, right?

R62, not one of those Gospels were written in Jesus’ lifetime. They likely borrowed from a common source. Luke is unfortunately way out in left field compared to the rest of the Gospels.

In fact Luke was only included in the official Canon by one vote

Those who think Trump is the second coming for Christianity are just feeding his ego. They are using him to get what they want politically.

[quote] Interesting how Christ and Krishna of Hindu mythology are so similar— virgin births, born to bring redemption, and even the names are so similar

There is no connection between the words "Christ" and "Krishna"

You people are freaks! Where are your brains!?

"Jesus" is a 100% fictional notion! Are you all high on crack?

The official Gospels were just written by people who were trying to prove the person they worship is the true God.

Of course they’re going to be biased

[Quote] There is no connection between the words "Christ" and "Krishna"

That sure seems like a GIANT coincidence doesn’t it?

Christianity is a composite religion— Mithraism is the biggest contributor.

Almost every aspect of Jesus’ life has correspondence with earlier religions.

The Middle East is at the cross-roads of the world so many ideas and influences flowed through the area.

The concepts of savior, afterlife, virgin birth, god as human, toppling the old order—are all found elsewhere

The whole virgin birth idea was a mistranslation from the Hebrew Old Testament.

The prophets of the Old Testament said the Messiah would be born of a YOUNG (virgin) mother. It was mistranslated in the Aramaic of the New Testament as a sexual virgin.

Jesus supporters had to create a whole back story to prove their guy was the true Messiah by including a sexually virgin birth. Enter the Angel Gabriel

Mythology being built around a man doesn't mean that man didn't exist.

Who was hotter? Jesus or Dionysus?

Jesus or Horus?

Did Moses exist? Which biblical figures have proof of existence?

[quote] Did Moses exist?

[quote] And Moses, and Eleazar the priest, and all the princes of the congregation, went forth to meet them without the camp; and Moses was wroth with the officers of the host, with the captains over thousands, and captains over hundreds, which came from the battle; and Moses said unto them, Have ye saved all the women alive? behold, these caused the children of Israel, through the counsel of Balaam, to commit trespass against the Lord in the matter of Peor, and there was a plague among the congregation of the Lord. Now, therefore, kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman that hath known a man by lying with him; but all the women-children, that have not known a man by lying with him, keep alive for yourselves.

People aren't really thinking about this logically. Jesus wasn't that famous or important while he was alive. He was a poor cult leader with very few followers. Why would there be evidence he existed? Without internet, how much evidence will there be of your existence thousands of years from now?

It's all a matter of faith. Even if God presented evidence, there would still be skepticism.

Jesus never said anything, either pro or con, about the Hershey Highway!

[quote] Even if God presented evidence, there would still be skepticism.

But what if God presented hole?

After 5000 years of us as evidence, I think God needs to be transferred to a less demanding position.

Horus had cerebral palsy (withered leg) -- which I do think impacts hotness. Also Horus got into a fight/wrestling contest with Uncle Seth. Seth won and buggered him as his reward. >> Which is where all wrestling porn originates.

I consider myself agnostic at this point. I also notice science is becoming more and more faith based. Many scientists refuse to believe in God but accept that the universe sparked from nothingness and that millions of earths exist in a multiverse.

Dionysus was a fit fat bisexual drug addict with a penchant for violence. If that's a turn on... hotter than Jesus.

So, for our Hotness Hierarchy:

1. Mithras

2. Jesus

3. Dionysus

4. Horus

[quote] scientists refuse to believe in God but accept that the universe sparked from nothingness and that millions of earths exist in a multiverse.

This is what dumbfounds me. People refuse to believe Jesus ever existed but believe there are multiverses (and there is no actual proof of that either).

Wow I'm pleasantly surprised with how knowledgeable DL is. Most people I know think Jesus was made up.

We haven't talked about Buddha yet. Young Buddha, I'd rate just below Mithra, hot and fit Indian prince. Buddha after starving himself for 10 years in pursuit of enlightenment > below Horus

Is there actual proof that Buddha existed?

R101 There is a little evidence. Tacitus wrote about him contemporaneously.

I want to know where the person got the idea Luke got voted in by one vote.

Many atheists just want to shit down the throats of religious people without actually acknowledging the large amount of faith it takes just to survive on this planet.

Happy Easter!

R1. Tacitus had gappy annals. GAPPY.

R89 I never said the gospels were written during the lifetime of Jesus or by anyone who had met him. I simply said that historians examining the gospels are convinced that Jesus was born in Gaililee, was a follower of John the Baptist, was crucified by Rome etc. because the gospel writers are clearly uncomfortable with all of those things and would certainly have dealt with them differently if Jesus was simply a fictional character. Someone writing about George Washington 40-80 years after he died wouldn’t have been able to get away with claiming he was from Massachusetts because everyone would have known that Washington was from Virginia. That’s why historians view the gospel writers’ pretzel-twisting over Jesus's birthplace as evidence that he was a real person, not a fictional character.

Luke is one of the Synoptic gospels sharing material with Mark and Matthew and I don’t know how you can say it’s way out of left field compared to the others, and I’m not aware of any evidence that it was included in the NT canon by one vote.

R118 The annals aren't gappy. We just haven't been able to find many of them, despite knowing for a fact they exist.

That's why it's silly to say there'd be more evidence of Jesus if he was real. Parchment and paper almost never survive thousands of years. The paper we use now certainly won't. Every piece of ancient writing we have is a rare gift

Most scholars believe Mark was written within one generation of the death of Jesus.

R120 With respect to his Dialogs, isn’t the length of lacunae some six folia?

Doesn’t Josephus get any love here. He got John the baptist right. What makes him wrong with James the brother of Jesus called the Christ.

Re.Josephus:

"Flavius Josephus fully defected to the Roman side and was granted Roman citizenship. He became an advisor and friend of Vespasian's son Titus, serving as his translator when Titus led the Siege of Jerusalem."

He was Vichy-Judah.

R124. So, that made for an awkward Passover?

R124 The Romans were smart. If a foreigner was in any way useful to the empire, they granted them citizenship. They did that from their earliest days.

It's sad to see our political leaders today insist there is no value in letting the best and smartest foreigners immigrate to our country

[quote] It's sad to see our political leaders today insist there is no value in letting the best and smartest foreigners immigrate to our country

They're not sending their best. I already told you that.

[quote] Which biblical figures have proof of existence?

Some of the kings of Israel and Judah are mentioned in the records of neighboring states like Egypt. And, of course, foreign powers like Cyrus.

In the New Testament, Pilate and Herod.

That is if you ignore all New Testament writings as evidence.

The Best book I have read for debunking Jesus is The End of Faith by Sam Harris. It is really enjoyable and funny.

A made up homo figure

The Roman governor must have kept records. He probably had to submit an annual administrative report to Rome. It was an empire they were running. The administration must have been huge and elaborate.

I think it's very unlikely that Jesus was a fictitious character. It's more likely that he was a fairly charismatic Jewish rabbi/preacher in the early 1st century. Most of what he preaches was in the mainstream of Jewish thought, with a few exceptions. Proclaiming himself the Messiah was not mainstream, particularly because he was not advocating what the Jewish scriptures said that the Messiah was supposed to advocate. Orthodox views hold that the Messiah will be descended from his father through the line of King David and will gather the Jews back into the Land of Israel, usher in an era of peace, build the Third Temple, father a male heir, re-institute the Sanhedrin, and so on. There is some indication that Jews believed that the Messiah would be an effective military leader, which Jesus clearly was not.

Of course, the Jews themselves rely on a lot of hocus-pocus historically. For example, they are adamant that the proof of the authenticity of their religion lies in the escape of the Jews from Egypt, just celebrated this weekend with Passover. And the proof was that 3,000,000 Jews, enumerated in Numbers, saw the 10 commandments with their own eyes and heard God's own voice from a cloud over Mt. Sinai, during their 40 years of wandering in the Sinai, when Moses brought stone tablets down from the mountaintop. The only problem with that is that the Egyptians, who were very good chroniclers, do not record any such massive desertion of a people from their land. They don't record the 10 plagues, they don't record the Red Sea opening up and closing again, the death of their pharaoh in such a way, the loss of all the first-born male children of Egypt- NONE of that. Science has not established any evidence that there was ever a migration of 3,000,000 through the Sinai. The desert is a great preserver. (No plants or rainfall to destroy the record). There would have been wagon ruts, trail ruts, etc. We still have very clear evidence of the Oregon Trail (well marked ruts) after 150 years, and only 80,000 people used it. Moreover, these ruts remain in areas that receive rainfall.

So, the upshot is that people after the fact try to legitimize their religions by making up stuff about their origins and try to make things square with prophesies, etc. It's fine to follow Jesus as an interesting philosopher with good insight into human nature, just as those of us who teach follow the Socratic method. Why layer a bunch of unbelievable supernatural crap on top of it?

Moses is a complete fabrication too. There is zero evidence that hebrews were kept as slaves by Egyptians. Furthermore, Egyptians were meticulous record keepers, yet zero record of plagues, oldest child from every household dying, entire military being drowned in the red sea. Plus, the 'land of Canaan' was part of the Egyptian empire, so you wouldn't be escaping Egypt by going farther north into what's still Egypt.

R132 Hey! It got REALLY GOOD RATINGS!

If you know jewish mysticism, there’s a funny habit of multiplying by 40. Not for literal accuracy, but to emphasize the numbers involved are really big. “40 days and 40 nights” just means “damn, it was really long”. 3 Million doesn’t mean literally 3 million. It’s 40 x .... a hell of a lot of people in that crowd that happens to be an exact multiple of 75,000 which is a *total coincidence*.

So, it was “a lot of ibrai saw some wicked impressive stuff following some wicked scary stuff in Egypt. Moses gave us law and we stopped making up idols, engaging in debauchery and threatening to follow Moloch”

R131, unfortunately only a fraction of Roman writings have survived. Rot and barbarians got to most of them.

[quote] So, it was “a lot of ibrai saw some wicked impressive stuff following some wicked scary stuff in Egypt. Moses gave us law and we stopped making up idols, engaging in debauchery and threatening to follow Moloch”

More like "We decided to worship one Sky Daddy instead of the multiple Sky Daddies and Mommies we used to worship. LOL!"

And by R134’s argument, the Egyptians of today are not the Egyptians of 3000 years ago. They don’t speak the language, share the culture or the history of the authentic, ancient Egyptian’s whose land they occupy.

All the evidence suggests the Hebrews were just another canaanite tribe with a rich folklore. The one distinction in their living quarters, per archeological digs, is that they refrained from eating pork. This is believed to be due to 'egyptization' during a monotheistic time period in Egyptian history. Egyptians believed pork caused leprosy and raising pigs was considered low class. The Egyptians also practiced circumcision, so the theory is that some canaanites retained these Egyptian practices.

Not sure about the source of passover mythology, may be a recycled myth from neighboring tribes.

R132 The Jewish Jesus might have existed, but the Xtian Jesus is pure bullshit!

Israel actually existed BEFORE the Bible says it does. Google the Merneptah Stele. The Israelites were probably a combination of various people who took control of the area as the Canaanite culture collapsed, including possibly the Hyksos, a Semitic people expelled from Lower Egypt, the Shasu people, who worshiped a god named Ywh (i.e., YHWH) and the Habiru (i.e., Hebrews) known to the Egyptians as bandits and highwaymen of the hill country to the east of Canaan.

How many people believe in multiverses? Anyone who believes in any one of the thousands of gods, already believes that something comes from nothing (i.e. their sky wizard). Also, they believe that all the other gods are fiction except for their particular god. This makes them, by default, atheist with respect to other gods.

Science allows for the falsification of a theory based on subsequent evidence, faith has no such construct.

Science is for thinking people... Faith is for the non-thinkers.

R138. There might be some historical support, depending on which of the historians and cultural anthropologists you read. The origin myths started to appear (yes, I’m nominally Jewish) with northern Hebrew prophets in the 8th century BCE and roughly 100 years later in the south. There are variations across the Transjordan region on the origin myth, which isn’t surprising

Assyria had conquered the 25th Egyptian dynasty during the approximate period of the origin myth. The Epic of Gilgamesh, which was Akkadian and precedes the Assyrians, contains many stories with strong resemblance to a number of Old Testament characters and stories.

Humanity needs to rid itself of these silly myths,

One reason I believe something unique happened with Jesus that did not happen with the dozens of other Israelites claiming to be messiahs is that Jews have no religious myth of a hero that rose from the dead. Some other cultures did but not Jewish people. Something caused the religious reformation that caused Christianity, even if its not the exact story in the bible.

R144 Or put them in their place... like Greek myths. I can't believe they can teach all about Greek myths in Western education and avoid saying the Christianity and its god are as fictional.

21% of DLers polled believe in fairy tales.

Look at how complex humans are. We are machines who can power ourselves by eating a huge variety of food sources, can repair ourselves, and contain a complete set of instructions to remake ourselves from scratch in every cell in our body. Even with all our science and technology, we could not even credibly attempt to build something as complex and multifaceted as our own bodies. That is why I think there must be an intelligence behind it all.

R145. No, Judiasm has never had a resurrection myth. However, Zoroastrianism does and did have ritual resurrection and there are rituals to Ahura-Mazda for the purification of the body to prepare for resurrection.

Zoroastrianism predates Judaism.

R149 Yes I know many other cultures had that sort of myth. But up until Jesus, you never saw Jewish people incorporate it into their theology. Then around 20 BC the idea explodes, and overtakes every other aspect of Judaism for some people. I don't think that's random. I think many people must have witnessed or experienced something that profoundly reshaped their world view. It might not have been precisely Jesus rising from the dead but it was something that more than some random figure preaching. There were so many of those in that time period

R132, you have some good points; however...

[quote] The only problem with that is that the Egyptians, who were very good chroniclers, do not record any such massive desertion of a people from their land.

Actually they do. They don’t label them as Jews, though. I can’t recall if it was the Sea People or it was another group that marauded their way out of Egypt, but there is a record of a people who may in fact have been the Israelites.

As for the rest, it’s hard to know what to think. Certainly the Bible stories aren’t all literal, but I don’t doubt that there is much truth to them.

For example, the story of Noah’s flood is myth, right? Except we now know that the Black Sea was once a much smaller fresh water lake. At some point in the last 10,000 years, possibly due to rising sea levels from ice age melt, a channel opened from it to the Mediterranean. The resulting endless flood of the lakeside settlements would have seemed like the world had ended and an act of God.

I know there are flood myths in every culture, but the biblical story may well be a description of what we already know was a similar, real world event in the area.

The Egyptian group you are thinking of are the Hyksos, r151.

This is a pointless argument.

What is true is the message.

Kindness, forgiveness and redemption.

In our current fuck fest, we all need this now more than ever.

If you have a more than casual interest in the research and scholarship of the early Christian period, the Vridar blog has a lot of very interesting stuff to consider.

The people I meant to refer to were the Hyksos. Not the Sea People.

The Council of Nicaea voted on whether to make Jesus divine or not. It's likely he existed as a man but I don't for one second believe he was divine.

Jesus would have been celebrating Passover this weekend.

Yes he does, I saw him last night while I was getting railed

R156 Then what made thousands of Jewish people give up the religion they had practiced for a millennia.

I believe Jesus was divine. I also believe Muhammad, Buddha, and many other people were. Each glimpsed a part of something bigger than themselves, that's why their messages are all so similar

R151 The whole Noah tall tale is as fake as can be, since it is full of what we would call plot holes. That's the problem with linking these fake stories to real geological events... It degrade legitimate science, since the only purpose to do so is to give lies credence. Whatever "flood event" that occurred has little to bearing on the myth concocted later by unknown sources.

[quote] I believe Jesus was divine. I also believe Muhammad, Buddha, and many other people were. Each glimpsed a part of something bigger than themselves, that's why their messages are all so similar

Does the message include slaughtering your enemies? Because at least one of the people you mentioned advocated that.

I was raised Catholic and we celebrated Passover as well. Holy Thursday through Easter Sunday, each day had a ritual associated with food and a biblical passage. I miss it today.

R161 Men are men, and fallible. I don't think any one prophet has the entire message right. What we can be confident is true are the elements all three of their messages share. The universe itself is conscious, and we serve it's will by being good to one another

Buddha never claimed to be divine.

R164 That's true, but he did believe he glimpsed the truth behind the universe. That is touching divinity at the least

Cracking up at the consuela gif.

[quote] [R161] Men are men, and fallible. I don't think any one prophet has the entire message right. What we can be confident is true are the elements all three of their messages share. The universe itself is conscious, and we serve it's will by being good to one another

That's a nice little duality you have there. The nice things are true and divine, but the bad things are false and human.

I'm guessing you're one of those Law of Attraction ilk.

"Then what made thousands of Jewish people give up the religion they had practiced for a millennia?"

The same thing that "converted" thousands to Christianity during the Crusades. Fear of being killed for believing otherwise.

R168 That doesn't make sense. During the crusades there were tens of thousands of well armed Christians to force conversions. In the first century AD there were none. In fact they were the oppressed minority at that point in time. And still conversions happened faster than Rome could contain them.

I’ve never understood these conversion arguments. Joseph Smith was a con man. The fact that he was able to convince a lot of people to give up the religion they’d been practicing for centuries and follow a new one has nothing to do with the truth of Mormon claims. There are a lot of reasons why Christianity became an attractive religion.

Mormonsism is a sect of Christianity, not an entirely new religion. I know many mormons would disagree but I would disagree with them. The central framework of Christianity is all there. Just with different characters.

And even if you did want to treat it as a separate religion, the scale is completely different. by multiple orders of magnitude. Christianity has had a dramatically larger impact on the world

I would never want to be the person that took religious belief away from anyone. For many, it is all that keeps them on the right side of the line between sanity and insanity. Yes, I know there are those who go overboard and want to kill all nonbelievers, but they are in the minority. There are extremist on both sides of this (silly) debate. As a secular Jew, I think religious debates are best argued in the insane asylums of the world. Judaism plainly states, man can never know G*d. Don't get me started on the contradictions to this statement. Jews make up all kinds of crap too.

Christianity spread for several reasons: One monolithic state which allowed free movement of peoples, aka the Roman Empire. The other was the message that you will be 'born again' physically into an afterlife if you believed.. which did not exist within other religions at the time. The other factor is that it spread among slaves > the most oppressed group whose physical life gave them few options.

At the time of Jesus, not very many people converted. He was a nobody until hundreds of years later

R174 The first gospels we know of were written about 60 years after he died and spread widely throughout the middle east. That implies at least several thousand followers. And even while he lived he was notorious enough to have caught the eye of the Roman Empire, in an age with dozens if not hundreds of would be messiahs wandering around

One thing is true, the Romans, and the Greeks before them, kept better records than the Judo-christian empire. Also, one would think that if you actually were able to resurrect the son of your god, you would probably want to document the shit out of it?

They did not. No facts or records have ever been found, just the myth survives.

Yes R171 but in response to R159 Christianity started out as a sect within Judaism. People such as Peter and Paul were Jews who had no idea they were founding a new religion. They just thought they’d discovered the true version of Judaism if you don’t like the Mormon example but want a large scale post-Christian religion with a hell of a lot of converts and adherents then I suppose Islam would be an example.

R176 As has been explained above we don't even have a 1/100th of documents from Ancient Rome. Papyrus doesn't last thousands of years under normal circumstances. It wasn't meant to. Our paper won't last that long either.

To give you just one example. We know for a fact Tacitus wrote 30 book in his Annals. We know this because in writings we do have many people mention owning the entire set. The full set of thirty books is referenced multiple times. Tacitus was also well respected in his day and most wealthy Romans had a set if even just to show off they were "learned" and "hip"

Despite it being accepted historical fact there were 30 books, and despite us knowing many complete copies of the set were made and spread widely throughout the empire we have only found the first 16 books. We know the other 14 exist, but none seem to have survived or been discovered. That is just one example of thousands of lost documents

Absence of documents is NOT evidence that said documents never existed, not by a long shot

R176 Why would thy need to keep records when it's a doomsday cult that predicts the imminent arrival of the Lord's kingdom? Besides, the Christian church wanted to keep people illiterate and dumb, so they can better shepherd them as sheeple. In fact, they are still trying to sell this anti-intellectual crap to this day and age.

[quote] R176: No facts or records have ever been found,

You mean, excluding the New Testament. Like I wrote earlier, there’s no evidence of Jesus’s existence, after you discount all the proof that there is. You get that, right?

You have to admire the intelligence of Ancient Greeks for realizing that Aesop's talking snakes was a literary device.

It’s easy to imagine why Christianity would have appealed to people. In one of his letters, Paul says that in Jesus there is no male or female, no free or enslaved. If you’re a woman or a slave, this is an attractive religion. It says the entire order will be reversed (first shall be last, last shall be first) and it called for sharing of resources and condemnation of the rich, so you can see why it would have been attractive to poor people. It preached a god of love and justice and forgiveness and mercy who loved everyone as a father loves his children at a time when a lot of the pagan gods were capricious sons of bitches. And then of course there’s the whole bodily resurrection to eternal life thing.

The references to Jesus in Roman sources are pious frauds. This seems obvious when they are closely examined. They were inserted by monks in the early Middle Ages (or late dark ages).

Still I see no reason to assume that the gospels are wholesale fabrications, if for no other reason than the stories are mostly actually quotidian. If you were making up a messiah, he’d be more spectacular than Jesus.

R184 That's as ahistorical as anything I've ever heard a Christian say. Jesus is in one Roman source, Tacitus. And there is no evidence at all he was inserted into it. The surviving documents we have from him have been properly dated. People have spent years scrutinizing them (not even because of Christianity, which he only mentioned in passing but because people are naturally skeptical one man could be so prolific. The same way some people are fascinated by finding out Shakespeare's identity)

I swear atheists just throw any old assertion they read online out there with no research then attack Christians for doing that

"A" Jesus. Not necessarily "The" Jesus.

R184 I disagree with your last point. Jesus was made up to be spectacular to low classes in the first millennium. Hell, those tall tales are still spectacular to the less enlightened masses in the third world.

R187 The first gospels were written in Greek, which was the language of educated people. Most early christians wouldn't have been able to read them. The existence of the gospels suggest followers at higher levels of society

The writings of Tacitus were essentially "rewritten" much, much later and shit was added to make it fit the allegory.

[quote]Even with all our science and technology, we could not even credibly attempt to build something as complex and multifaceted as our own bodies. That is why I think there must be an intelligence behind it all.

Just because lots of things are beyond your comprehension (or imagination) does not prove the presence of any "God". How puerile!

If jesus's existence was true, why did the Holy Roman Empire burn down every library in the ancient world? This is were the extensive records would be kept. Why would you destroy all the evidence, if your claim was true?

R189 Do you have ANY evidence or any writings from a published academic backing you up or are you just posting things you hope are true?

R188 Made up by educated liars to appeal to sheeples. Proselytizing to the masses is done orally. Christians were kept illiterate by the Church for a reason. Let's be real... Religions are all scams run by the those who know what they are selling is propaganda BS.

In 1902 Georg Andresen commented on the appearance of the first 'i' and subsequent gap in the earliest extant, 11th century, copy of the Annals in Florence, suggesting that the text had been altered, and an 'e' had originally been in the text, rather than this 'i'.[17] "With ultra-violet examination of the MS the alteration was conclusively shown. It is impossible today to say who altered the letter e into an i. In Suetonius' Nero 16.2, 'christiani', however, seems to be the original reading".[18] Since the alteration became known it has given rise to debates among scholars as to whether Tacitus deliberately used the term "Chrestians", or if a scribe made an error during the Middle Ages.

His writings show no sympathy towards Christians, or knowledge of who their leader was.

If nothing else, at least 70% of DL accepts that Jesus existed. Eighty percent, if you include Vivian Vance.

R193 The masses were illiterate for thousands of years before Christ was a thought in anyone's head. The Christian church did nothing to "keep" people illiterate. 90% of ancient people had no reason to learn to read or write. People learned when they had a reason to like commerce or government, and the church did nothing to help or hinder them

[QUOTE]Science is for thinking people... Faith is for the non-thinkers. Humanity needs to rid itself of these silly myths

I'd say that what humanity needs to get rid of is the arrogant fools who truly believe that the science their little monkey brains are capable of grasping makes them all-knowing.

For these pathetic creatures I have 2 things to say:

1) You don't know SHIT

2) There's nothing you can do or say that will make anyone lose their faith. NOTHING.

R196 Keep telling yourself that. The Church had iron grip on society in the Middle Age and would only allow the clergy to learn reading and writing. Compared that to Ancient Greek/Roman society where anyone upper class male would be educated.

[quote] R191: If jesus's existence was true, why did the Holy Roman Empire burn down every library in the ancient world? This is were the extensive records would be kept. Why would you destroy all the evidence, if your claim was true?

Charlemagne is often recognized as the first Holy Roman Emperor, and he was a patron of the arts and literature and created a library of his own.

I’ve never heard your assertion that the HRE destroyed every library in the ancient world and I don’t believe it.

[quote]"Then what made thousands of Jewish people give up the religion they had practiced for a millennia?"

What made men ALL stop wearing straw boater hats in the 1030s as if overnight, and then basically quit wearing hats all together years later? Was it Jesus, or just that things change over time, often in big burts within short periods?

what does the belief in Jesus give to you? And what is the belief that you hold dear?

[quote]Mormonism is a sect of Christianity, not an entirely new religion.

Uhm, not to CHRISTIANS it ain't!

Who gives a shit if Jesus exists? God doesn't exist, so how would there be a son.

r200 here, I of course meant the 1930s....unless the collapse of the Caliphate of Córdoba in 1031 contributed to it somehow?

For me as a person who loves ancient history, the intrigue about jesus's life is if he lived and was mythologized, or is it completely propaganda?

It's hard to deny the miracles.

R206 Fake miracles are hard to deny? Keep drinking the kool aid and you'll live forever

Actually r205, the answer to both your questions could be yes.

What Tacitus and others confirm is that there were definitely Christians floating about Rome in 90 AD. What we don't know is what they believed and how they practiced their religion. Once the Gospels were written and disseminated, there was probably a good deal more uniformity. I think most early Christians were essentially Jewish in practice, but with a more liberal policy of evangelism. (Membership in Judaism has always been primarily by birth). You could call them renegade Jews at that point in history. Many Catholic and Eastern Orthodox standard prayers mimic Jewish prayers, for example. "Blessed are You, LORD our God, King of the universe" (Baruch atai Adonai, etc) What early Christians believed about Jesus, we don't know. We don't know if they considered him divine, or just a great teacher/preacher. By the time the Gospels were written, beliefs had settled down enough for the writers of the Gospels to confidently state that Jesus had told his followers he was the son of God. But as someone above has stated, the church didn't definitively declare Jesus as divine until church councils in the 300 and 400 ADs. After that point, theologians bent every argument and document to support that view and to reinforce it for the future. So, as some have written above, it matters who gets to write the story after the fact. Christians also arrived in different parts of the world with slightly different beliefs and practices, uninfluenced by the churches based in Rome and Byzantium -for instance, the Copts of Ethiopia.

We would know more if the contents of the great library at Alexandria had not been burned or otherwise destroyed over the course of a few centuries in the early part of AD. Since this took place in a different geographic region, Egypt, an area that was never under the control of a single religion until the rise of Islam, it can't be blamed on the Holy Roman Empire or any other group of Christians. There were likely more histories of the early years of Christianity and what was going on in Judea prior to the destruction of Jerusalem. It's clear from the Dead Sea Scrolls that Judaism was far from a monolithic religion with a single set of beliefs or practices in that era, for instance.

Is it so hard to realize anyone/anything promising eternal life in whatever plane is a scam?

So Christians, when is the apocalypse coming? It's been delayed for more than a thousand years. Did your lord and savior forget?

I don't get it. My subscription religion guarantees on the Holy Bible that after one's death there is a 1 billion dollar account set up for each believer for the heavenly ethereal shopping networks, plus a custom mansion and two new cars every year for all eternity which of course are free of any human defects. Eternal life and orgasmic nightly rest on a sleep by numbers mattress too. None of these things have ever been combined with believing and tithing with certified checks while alive, ever before. Every man will be 6 to 7 feet tall with all appendages to match on the larger side. Every significant other will built to turn on specifications too.

I'm still waiting for my first returned application.

[quote]So Christians, when is the apocalypse coming? It's been delayed for more than a thousand years.

AOL says it's in 12 years, and people don't have any trouble believing her. Does it make it more believable when it's so specific?

R212 In 12 years, it would be another 12 years. There is always a new generation of gullible fools.

[quote]Jesus is in one Roman source, Tacitus. And there is no evidence at all he was inserted into it. The surviving documents we have from him have been properly dated.

Have they? In the first place, they were not all preserved together. The part we're discussing here, Annals 15.44, was unknown to the wider world of scholarship until it was discovered in the Laurentian Library in Florence, [italic]in the 16th century.[/italic] Supposedly the manuscript was dated to the 11th century, but it must have been some monastery's well-kept secret because [italic]no one[/italic], from the time Tacitus wrote Annals, till the point it was discovered, ever quoted the passage or otherwise attested to it. Had it been available at all to Christian antiquity, you can bet dozens of Church Fathers and teachers, from Origen and Eusebius to St John of Avila of the 16th century, would all have leaned heavily on it. No one knew of it.

Then there's also issues with the manuscript, matters like 'Chrestianoi' in place of 'Christianoi', and someone's attempt to erase the 'e' and make it into an 'i'. But the lack of attestation is the real killer. That particular part of Tacitus's Annals was always missing from history until it suddenly turned up in an Italian library during the Renaissance. To anyone familiar with the Church's history of forgery and interpolation, that ought to be gravely troubling.

R212 If you mean AOC, then you must be a deplorable troll. Climate change is based on real scientific measurements (though the theoretic model/prediction could be argued), not at all like the religious fantasy the deplorables prefer.

Yahweh was a rogue alien biochemist who broke every law & ethical standard of care to create a race infused with his own DNA, then interfered with its development for thousands of years & demanded worship. Then,~4,000 years later, he artificially impregnated a teen virgin, manipulated the Romans to send his son to his death after surrounding him with agents who themselves manipulated him, etc.

Alas, none of the choices on the survey quite suit the situation, at least for me. It's been somewhat the consensus of critical scholarship over the past century or so that the Epistles were written earlier than the gospels, although that has been challenged. But the Christ of the Epistles is rather different from the Jesus of the gospels, in that the Epistles do not generally recall a person who did deeds in the recent past, or who performed miracles; no words of Jesus are quoted as an authority for a practice. Christ is somewhat vaguely described as a non-corporeal being who appeared in dreams and visions, by revelation - rather like Daniel's "son of man" (Dan.7:13) - a theophany.

The earliest believers seem to have thought of Christ in this way, and selected a name for him meaning 'savior' - 'Joshua,' based in part on the legendary successor to Moses. But the better source would seem to have been Zechariah's vision of Joshua the High Priest in Zechariah 3. This image of Joshua - or Yeshua; same name - ministering before the angel of the Lord, with Stan standing at his right hand to resist him, seems to have informed the otherwise anonymous Epistle to the Hebrews, with Christ depicted in that role, ministering in a heavenly version of the Sanctuary. It has been speculated that 'Hebrews,' originally more a homily than a letter, and without the Pauline material appended, may well be the earliest Christian writing in the New Testament.

It was only later, in a completely different genre of religious writing, that the Christ of the Epistles developed into the Jesus of ostensible history.

Although I think that the basic idea of Christ as non-corporeal savior developed as an expansion on Intertestamental materials like Daniel and Zechariah, the next step on the road to 'Jesus' comes with the earliest extant canonical gospel, Mark. Mark seems to have been originally written as an allegory, mainly a transvaluation of the Homeric Epics, together with material borrowed from the Septuagint, from Josephus, and Philo. Mark was misunderstood by other Christian communities as a literal history, which, when they copied its contents (the other two Synoptics borrow some 95% of the text of Mark) or narrative structure into their own gospels, reinforced the idea of it as a narrative history. Like a snowball rolling down a hill, gospel narratives got more complex as more material was accreted.

Mark was regarded as heretical by other communities of believers, not least because of its docetism. Its version of Jesus is never born, but wanders into the narrative as an adult, presumably having descended from heaven. The Matthean and Lukan communities would not stand for this; both crafted nativity narratives independently of one another. (The Johannine gospel, like Mark, also began as a gnostic document, without a birth narrative for Jesus. )

The best current work on whether Jesus existed would be Richard Carrier's [bold]On the Historicity of Jesus: Why We Might Have Reason for Doubt[/bold] (Sheffield Phoenix Press Ltd, 2014).

R218 how does the absence of a birth narrative mean that Jesus presumably descended from heaven in Mark’s gospel? Mark gives him a mother and brothers and sisters who are all annoyed that their family member is causing such a fuss with his teachings. In Mark 6 the people in the synagogue in his home town identify him as the son of Mary.

Being the son of a god ain't that big of a deal in Greek myths... Many Greek heroes have some concocted half divine parentage. The crazy Xtians just coopted that and mixed it in with the Jewish Messiah tall tale, and make their fictional character the only son of the only god.

Whether Jesus existed or not is irrelevant, the one Xtians believes in is a fictional tall tale. Hell, they even turned him into a white European in their mind, what the point in seeking real proof for delusional people?

Between science and religion, mankind still knows almost nothing about how the universe and world work. Science enthusiasts and religious zealots are too eager to base their entire worldview on very few facts. Science enthusiasts also like to ignore how biased scientific research has become. The one thing we can assume is that the world will eventually end. Sucks for future humanity. I would hate to witness that shit.

Ha! I know the author at r218 very well (and personally). He is a crackpot that no one takes seriously. Same with Carrier.

There is no evidence for either of their theories. They make them up out of nothing, As noted well up the thread, Paul very clearly thought of Jesus as a real person with a real family. These "Jesus never existed guys" always have to twist their sources into saying something no one ever in the history of the world thought they said. Mark is not allegory. He even mentions people and notes how they are "still known among us today." And the people who come up with these crackpot theories always overlook the fact that early Christians thought the end of the world was TOMORROW. They had no long-term plans for world domination.

[quote] The Council of Nicaea voted on whether to make Jesus divine or not.

No, that's not accurate. They didn't "make" him divine, as if there were not centuries of Jesus being considered divine before Nicaea. Justin Martyr, Origen, Tertullian had thought and written of him as divine long before Nicaea. Nicaea was an attempt to explain HOW Jesus could be divine and yet Christianity not have TWO gods.

[quote] Had it been available at all to Christian antiquity, you can bet dozens of Church Fathers and teachers, from Origen and Eusebius to St John of Avila of the 16th century, would all have leaned heavily on it. No one knew of it.

This isn't at all accurate.

There are no arguments from church scholars for the existence of Jesus at all. It was taken as unimpeachable fact that Jesus of Nazareth was a historical figure. Arguments from prominent scholars against his existence didn't arise from anyone until about 150 years ago. St John would have felt no need to cite anyone to prove he lived. They thought of him the way we would think of George Washington.

Even when discussing the life of Jesus, the only acceptable primary source would have been the gospels. Keep in mind, it was well known then and now that the gospels weren't the only accounts of Christ's teachings. Many other sources existed that weren't included in the final, official version of the bible. Like the Gospel of Thomas for example. Citing that would have been considered heretical. The church spent years pushing the superiority of the the writings in the official bible over all other sources. That was by design.

And last, what could they even have cited Tacitus for? He wrote one sentence on Christ. Here's the whole passage

[quote] Consequently, to get rid of the report, Nero fastened the guilt and inflicted the most exquisite tortures on a class hated for their abominations, called Christians by the populace. Christus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilatus, and a most mischievous superstition, thus checked for the moment, again broke out not only in Judæa, the first source of the evil, but even in Rome, where all things hideous and shameful from every part of the world find their centre and become popular.

That's it, that's the whole thing. What would some great church scholar even use that line for?

r224 is that you, Tekton?

I believe in Jesus. And yes, I am gay AND a Christian.

I’d ask OP’s Jesus for a date. I’ll comfort him.

I believe in Zeus. Prove me wrong.

Zeus-Odin-Shiva may well have been based off a Proto-Indo-European chieften of some sort. In Norse mythology particularly the figure is presented this way, at least partially.

But there was likely no written language at all during that time period so we will never know. However there is a good secular source purporting the existence of Christ as a historical figure so that's good evidence he was real.

Keep in mind many figures that we take for granted were real come from just one such source as well. For example the first ruler of a united Egypt, Narmer. He's just listed in one document we have one copy of. But recent acheological evidence confirmed his existence.

I love how the Bible-banger keeps claiming that the biased texts of the faith prove that the object of the faith exists. That's like saying Marxism is true and all other economic theories false because of Das Kapital. Or that Donald Trump is a great and smart President because the Sean Hannity Show says he is.

R231 Tacitus wasn't Christian and actually seem to loathe early Christianity.

This has been discussed in great detail upthread.

[quote]how does the absence of a birth narrative mean that Jesus presumably descended from heaven in Mark’s gospel?

R220, the idea that Jesus was a descended heavenly being was common to the earlier Christologies of gnostics like Marcion. Marcion's theology, like his canon, preceded the Catholic; both Catholic theology and canon arose as reactions to Marcion. The Gospel of Mark exhibits many affinities with Marcionite theology, so much so that many critical scholars suspect that proto-Mark may well have originally been Marcion's lost gospel. (See link below)

[quote]Mark gives him a mother and brothers and sisters who are all annoyed that their family member is causing such a fuss with his teachings. In Mark 6 the people in the synagogue in his home town identify him as the son of Mary.

The Gospel of Mark as we have it today has changed considerably from its original form, otherwise it would have been suppressed in antiquity. Catholic "orthodoxy" interpolated material in order to make it better agree with later Synoptics; the most glaring example being Mark 16:9-20, the resurrection appearances and Commission. Likewise, Mark 6:3 is an interpolated analogue to Matthew 13:55, but from later, reflecting a greater focus on Mary as 'Mother of God.'* (Consider: elsewhere, in Mark 15:40, she is named "Mary the mother of James the younger and of Joseph," and in 16:1, "Mary the mother of James." No, this is not yet another instance of 'multiplying Marys,' this Mary, formerly one of three women characters transvaluated from Homer, was re-characterized by a later ecclesiastical redactor into the mother of Jesus. Redactors could not decide if they wanted 'Joseph' for one of the brothers, or as the 'father' of Jesus. It depended upon where one stood on the subject of Mary's perpetual virginity.)

The expression "home town" (Mark 6:1, 4) is utilized by modern translators to harmonize with Luke 4:16, which identifies the location as 'Nazareth.' Older translations used the more accurate "country" as a rendering for the Greek [italic]patridi[/italic], referring to 'Galilee.' 'Nazareth' was a later innovation, "the town theology created." Had Jesus intended to say 'town' in Mark 6:4, the term would have been [italic]a polis,[/italic] ("city"), not [italic]patridi[/italic] ("country").

*Consider the difference in wording between Matthew 13:55, "Isn't this [italic]the son of[/italic] the carpenter?", and Mark 6:3, "Isn't this the carpenter?" Considering the word [italic]tekton[/italic], commonly rendered 'carpenter,' but interpretively understood more in the sense of 'architect' or 'designer' (referring to God as creator), the two statements reflect competing Christologies, with Matthew calling him 'the son of God,' and the Markan passage calling him 'God.' Through 'Mark' is the earlier of the two gospels, the interpolated passage at Mark 6:3 reflects a later Christology than that of Matthew 13:55.

The only true Church today is the Orthodox. Today the Church of Rome and the Popess are nothing more than stooges for the global usury banking criminals.

No. Martin Luther had the right of it. You don't need a church to find God. You do that on your own. Churches are only useful as support structures for the faithful

R26 you know that Pail was an insane liar don't you? He disagreed with Christ's brother and Peter about Jesus! They knew him personally but crazy Paul claimed he saw him in a vision of some sort. He even called himself the Christus! He was a very gay, closeted and crazy Jewish man

I am glad to see that 25% of the gays believe in the divinity of Christ.

[quote]It's likely he existed as a man but I don't for one second believe he was divine.

Of course not. Divine lived longer.

much better filmography as well

[quote]There are no arguments from church scholars for the existence of Jesus at all. It was taken as unimpeachable fact that Jesus of Nazareth was a historical figure.

Well, R225, that's certainly disingenuous, to say the least, since most of the pre-Nicene and Nicene patristic literature was devoted to demonstrating Jesus existed as a man - against gnostics who insisted Jesus was non-corporeal, or only "appeared" to be human, and pagan skeptics who said Jesus was "invented" (Trypho, from Justin's 'Dialogue'). It's also the focus of most of the Catholic stratum of the New Testament, which kept insisting that the ostensible authors were eyewitnesses, and that anyone who taught that Jesus was non-corporeal was 'antichrist.' The late 2nd century pseudepigrapher of 2 Peter 1:16 attests to challenges to claims about Jesus when he writes, "For we did not follow cleverly devised fables when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of His majesty." Clearly someone was saying that they were fables.

[quote]That's it, that's the whole thing. What would some great church scholar even use that line for?

As proof that Tacitus had attested to Christ, of course. The same uses to which Eusebius put the 'Testimonium' of Josephus, forged in its entirety. (see link) Patristic literature was peppered with such claims, as any Christian who's ever posted some online list of 'proofs of Jesus Christ' should be able to attest. Just as the forged 'Testimonium' summarized the gospels as succinctly as a compact creedal statement, the sentence in Annals 15:44 goes out of its way to mention his execution during the reign of Tiberius, under the orders of Pontius Pilate, serving as validation for the gospels. It also validates claims of Christians as persecuted martyrs, something that scholars have shown to be rubbish (see Candida Moss, [bold]The Myth of Persecution: How Early Christians Invented a Story of Martyrdom[/bold], HarperOne, 2014). There's considerable use for such a passage.

No, Tacitus didn't write it, any more than Josephus wrote the Testimonium.

[quote]Ha! I know the author at R218 very well (and personally).

R224, no you don't.

[quote]you know that Pail was an insane liar don't you? He disagreed with Christ's brother and Peter about Jesus! They knew him personally but crazy Paul claimed he saw him in a vision of some sort. He even called himself the Christus! He was a very gay, closeted and crazy Jewish man

R236, Paul didn't exist.

Can we at least agree that Christianity has been riven with schisms since 150 a.c.e. and what is now 'orthodox' is the work of committees, politics, and persecutions. If there is a historical christ his actual meaning and message is one twisted bonsai tree at this point.

[quote] R210: So Christians, when is the apocalypse coming? It's been delayed for more than a thousand years. Did your lord and savior forget?

Various people choose to believe what they want. But it has not been “delayed”, because it has never been specified. All that is said is that only God knows when.

I can guarantee, though, that for you, your apocalypse comes within 80 years. Does that make a difference to you, knowing that? Because that is your fate.

R222: Whether Jesus existed or not is irrelevant, the one Xtians believes in is a fictional tall tale. Hell, they even turned him into a white European in their mind, what the point in seeking real proof for delusional people?

The Virgin of Guadalupe is dark skinned Mexican-adjacent. That’s common the world over.

Though, people naturally modeled their icons after the people in their community. A medieval German who never met a Palestinian Jew would not know how to depict him or might not even know he looked different.

[quote] Ha! I know the author at [R218] very well (and personally). [R224], no you don't.

The author (Dennis McDonald), not you, r218.

[quote] The Gospel of Mark exhibits many affinities with Marcionite theology, so much so that many critical scholars suspect that proto-Mark may well have originally been Marcion's lost gospel.

No, the vast majority of scholars agree Marcion's gospel was a shorter version of Luke, not Mark.

The rest of your post is equally blather. Other than the ending of Mark (16:9-20), the majority of scholars do not say anything remotely like you do about Mark.

R243 So everyone dies? What's your point? There is still no god. no heaven. no hell.

R245, by 'scholars,' I mean critical scholars, not the spectrum of faith-based theologians who all employ some degree of belief in their scholarship.

Haughtiness and ad hominems don't count as legitimate arguments.

R236 Paul existed but he was a false prophet and a very arrogant little princess.

[quote] Haughtiness and ad hominems don't count as legitimate arguments.

You dismiss scholars of faith (instead of disproving their arguments) and then complain about ad hominem attacks?

I made specific arguments. Disprove them.

r247 can't beat their arguments so he just says anything from a Christian scholar shouldn't count 🙄

[quote] R223: Between science and religion, mankind still knows almost nothing about how the universe and world work.

In recent decades, science has learned that there is not enough mass-producing gravity in the universe to hold spiral galaxies together. In a spiral, the outermost stars should be moving faster around the center, but they are not. They should fly off into space. (Like how skaters linked and skating in a circle, the outermost skaters must skate faster than the innermost.) There is no explanation for this, so they created a fudge-factor that is a holding-place for a future rational explanation, “dark matter”.

Likewise, they found that galaxies are not just flying away from each other, but doing so at ever increasing speed. This means some energy source is acting on them to speed them up, but no such force is known. So, another fudge factor called “dark energy”, that is a holding place for a future rational explanation.

[quote]I made specific arguments. Disprove them.

No, you didn't. You made several unsupported declamations, several appeals to ad populum, called Dennis MacDonald crazy (I don't believe for a moment that you know him), and what I had to say 'blather.' None of that constitutes anything approaching an argument. The haughtiness and insults pretty much say everything one needs to know about you.

I've posted a considerable amount of information to this thread, across several posts, with linked sources. Address yourself to that, using actual arguments, if you can. I rather doubt it.

So GOD = Dark Energy?

No, god = "fudge factor"!

[quote] R246: [R243] So everyone dies? What's your point?

You asked “So Christians, when is the apocalypse coming? It's been delayed for more than a thousand years. Did your lord and savior forget?”, and my response to you, my point, and what might be of interest to you, is that he has not forgotten, and that your days are limited. 80 years is a stretch. You might have 20 years, or less.

You asked. Don’t get pissy if you don’t want to hear the answer, or don’t ask such questions.

I said the vast majority of scholars think Marcion's gospel was closely related to Luke, not Mark.

I said the vast majority of scholars do not believe Mark was tampered with in the way you described, excepting the ending.

I do know Dennis. I have no idea why that should be controversial.

Posting ONE scholar does not prove that the majority of scholars believe that scholar to be right. Dennis McDonald, for example, has been looking for an acolyte for years to bolster his arguments unsuccessfully. He is out on that limb alone.

Could the 12 apostles read and write? It has been suggested that since they were Jews, in all likelihood they very possibly could. If they couldn't, might Jesus have given them this skill in the form of a miracle? Could Jesus read and write? Still no answer to these questions. Fortunately, no one seems to have lied about the possibility that none of the primary actors might or might not have been literate. These are the underlying unknowns that have always made me question the veracity of the RC church having actually been in existence from the time of St. Peter. Following the "come to Jesus" explosion in the 4th century in Rome no less, there were no popes until the year one thousand. I know the Church has a listing of popes from St. Peter, I doubt any of them had any personal knowledge of being a pope and the list is simply a Church created list to substantiate its crazy claims. Seven centuries is a long time to forge an ecclesiastical government and smacks of manipulation of facts to justify the claims of the day. I know the Orthodox in Greece never had popes, only the Coptic and Armenians seem to have utilized this title but I don't know when this took place. It was also around 1000 AD that priests were not allowed to marry, turning the entire organization into a gay haven for homosexual men to escape embarrassing question from inquiring minds of family and friends.

R255 Your answer is stupid, and isn't even an answer to the question. But that's religion for you. It's for stupid people.

[quote] Following the "come to Jesus" explosion in the 4th century in Rome no less, there were no popes until the year one thousand.

What are you talking about?

[quote] I know the Church has a listing of popes from St. Peter, I doubt any of them had any personal knowledge of being a pope and the list is simply a Church created list to substantiate its crazy claims.

There is plenty of outside confirmation of the existence of these Popes.

[quote] I know the Orthodox in Greece never had popes, only the Coptic and Armenians seem to have utilized this title but I don't know when this took place.

The Pope is simply the Bishop of Rome. Because he has authority over other bishops, he is an Archbishop. The leader of the Orthodox Church is also an Archbishop.

[quote] Why layer a bunch of unbelievable supernatural crap on top of it?

R132 Every culture has origin stories. They are part history, part lore, part legend. They are embellished to impart lessons of history, society and ethics to keep the culture together.

The supernatural parts are to strike fear and awe in the hearts of the people. It's a way of making people behave in a particular way. This was especially important in the oral pre-text age when no one could read.

The practice continued after text but before mass education, exploited by a few self-anointed who could read, like rabbis Brahmins, monks, mullahs, and priests.

What we see today is religion in the age of mass education as well as communication technology. These don't make us any smarter (as this thread amply proves) but it does make for more informed and misinformed people (viz this thread too) who can read and write in shared languages.

It will be interesting to see how then in this age the major religions morph, coexist and change in order to survive and retain their power and financial structures. Obviously belief as a part of human nature is not going away.

Keanu - skinny hot Buddha

Let’s not discount biblical scholars for being believers of some kind or another. I haven’t read anything here, presenting any position, that does not seem to be posted by people who have an opinion. The argument that this is somehow damning is dishonest, since it applies to everyone.

R151, the Hykksos were kicked out of Egypt for being a nuisance. They were never slaves in Egypt, but belonged to an administrative class who gained favor under one dynasty and lost it under another.

Resurrection mythology was common in Greece and Rome. The Levant was under the influence of both, not a surprise that these myths infiltrated jewish cults controlled by hellenized jews.

I have never heard of the Hyksos being a distinct class, but rather a distinct ethnic group. But, yes, there is nothing to indicate they were slaves. They briefly ruled Egypt, they didn't gain favor under other rulers.

R197, clearly, you've never heard of Matt Dillahunty.

[quote]Posting ONE scholar does not prove that the majority of scholars believe that scholar to be right.

I wasn't aware that majorities were the goal. [italic]That's[/italic] one of the 'ad populum' arguments you keep making. The A-Unicornist link was to demonstrate that the majority of biblical scholars are and have always been Christian. They have a personal stake in Christian claims, not least of all the existence of Jesus, because their livelihoods are tied to it.

The Theory of Evolution spent a long time being a minority point of view, even among scientists; it emerged at a time when most of the Royal Academy also held various doctorates and honors of divinity. The point is that majorities do not make a view correct; it comes down to the arguments and actual evidence.

[quote]I said the vast majority of scholars think Marcion's gospel was closely related to Luke, not Mark.

And again, the vast majority of scholars have accepted the claims of Epiphanius of Salamis, a Catholic Church Father, who made that claim in the 4th-5th century. Under actual examination, it does not bear up. Marcion's theology and what survives of his statements show far more affinity with Mark.

[quote]I do know Dennis. I have no idea why that should be controversial.

There's no evidence for it apart from your say-so. Knowing Dennis MacDonald is not what's controversial - thinking that calling him 'crazy' constitutes some kind of legitimate rebuttal is. Your approach to these issues, the way in which you argue, reeks of intellectual dishonesty. I think it likely that dishonesty extends to your claims to knowing him personally.

[quote]Posting ONE scholar does not prove that the majority of scholars believe that scholar to be right.

Again, I'm not interested in majority claims; they have nothing to do with the validity of arguments.

[quote]Dennis McDonald, for example, has been looking for an acolyte for years to bolster his arguments unsuccessfully. He is out on that limb alone.

Apparently not, since I only know of his argument and his book because they were favorably cited by both Robert M Price and Richard Carrier (calling Carrier a "crackpot" as you did upthread, is ad hominem, and not an argument).

I don't get the impression you ever swim outside of Christian apologetic circles; you've no idea what the arguments are within critical scholarship, and you have too much contempt for them to try to find out.

I think it is generally understood today that the major construction workers in Egypt were skilled, valuable artisans who were paid well and even fed meat, to keep them strong. No doubt there was a hierarchy of workers, and there must have been slaves for the brute force work, but not great masses of them. That’s an unimportant detail in my book as any kind of conflict with the Moses story.

The Hyksos became feared by the Egyptians due to their numbers, were expelled, an marauded and raided Egyptian towns on their way out of Egypt - just the kind of thing that would have prompted Pharaoh to send an army in chase. Just like the elements of the Exodus tale.

[quote] I don't get the impression you ever swim outside of Christian apologetic circles; you've no idea what the arguments are within critical scholarship, and you have too much contempt for them to try to find out.

So you are as wrong about that as you are about the historical Jesus. Maybe you should talk to my students at the public university where I work and teach about this. Or catch my next presentation at SBL. Because then you would know that I don't only consider scholars who agree with me or confirm my biases...like you do.

[quote]So you are as wrong about that as you are about the historical Jesus.

Unsupported opinion. Offer some evidence for the "historical Jesus."

[quote]Maybe you should talk to my students at the public university where I work and teach about this. Or catch my next presentation at SBL.

Whatever. Unsupported claims of expertise.

Indeed, unsupportable. We are all anonymous here, and it would be extremely foolish to give up that anonymity. I won't do it, and I'm not going to ask anyone else here to do it. If you cannot support your arguments by anything besides claims about who you are, then you've already ceded the discussion.

[quote]Because then you would know that I don't only consider scholars who agree with me or confirm my biases...

That isn't borne out by your responses. You only favor majority consensus, and the majority happen to be Christian. You characterize those outside of your preferred group to be crackpots and crazy. More rhetorical dishonesty.

More congruity between Marcion and Mark. (see link)

R181, the NT is not proof of Jesus's existence anymore than Hans Christian Andersen's writings are proof of the Ugly Duckling's existence. The bible is a book of myths. The gospels were not written by anyone who lived contemporaneously with Jesus. The earliest gospel was written more than 70 years after his purported death. The Jesus character was based on a composite of revolutionary jews who were guilty of sedition against the Roman empire. The punishment for sedition was crucifixion. For more than 300 years, the Jesus cults had no common understanding of what their beliefs were. Some believed you had to be a jew to be a Christian others believed you did not have to be a jew (Paul belonged to the latter group). Even the bible you tout as evidence is nothing but a grouping of booklets aggregated based on a vote at the council of Nicea which declared that Jesus was not merely human, but superhuman/divine. This established the nicene creed. And writings that supported the creed were cherry picked and aggregated to form the NT. Any books that contradicted this creed were deemed heretical. Some of the writings still exist in the form of the gnostic bible. All this to say that, had the vote gone the other way, you'd be quoting a completely different book as your 'evidence' to support a completely different set of beliefs.

Virgin births, crossing water often carrying godly infants to safety, resurrection, deified ancestors and historical figures are all common in many mythologies.

[quote] Even the bible you tout as evidence is nothing but a grouping of booklets aggregated based on a vote at the council of Nicea...

The canon was not voted on or decided in any way at Nicaea.

[quote] Unsupported opinion. Offer some evidence for the "historical Jesus."

Offered throughout this thread. You just choose to believe who you want to believe and ignore everyone else.

[quote] If you cannot support your arguments by anything besides claims about who you are, then you've already ceded the discussion.

I could post all sorts of scholars who disagree with your position, but you don't care. I could post John Dominic Crossan, Bart Ehrman, Geza Vermes, Burton Mack, James Robinson, Greg Riley and on and on. Some are persons of the Christian faith, some are Jews, some are atheists. They would all argue for the existence of the person named Jesus.

[quote] Whatever. Unsupported claims of expertise.

And the point wasn't that I am an expert. The point was that you know absolutely nothing about me. And yet you have decided as absolute truth that I do not know Dennis McDonald. Or don't read or consider anyone except Christian scholars and on and on.

R271 has eyes, but chooses not to see.

It is just as dangerous for extreme atheists and agnostics to criticize Christians and threaten eradication of them as it is for extreme Christians to threaten those of other religious sects or atheists and agnostics.

Most decent Christians simply live through the words of Christ promoting kindness to your neighbor and love over any kind of hate. Most basic atheists and agnostics have no desire to promote any sort of hatred against believers. But somewhere along the line, the extremists of all groups have come to push for the eradication and disolvement of other groups which goes against what Jesus preached.

For someone who has a basic faith but leaves others to their own belief system, it shows me a violent future approaching to where we all loose. I don't expect anybody, even my closest friends and family, to live by my belief which is an invisible one I believe through private signs given to me throughout my life. I don't have the answers, but I have the ideals that Jesus preached, whether just as a teacher or the son of God. Simple ideals of a salvation that God makes easy but mankind makes impossible.

[quote] So MacDonald knows my pain. He gets treated the same way sometimes. He nevertheless is still certain Jesus existed.

Gee, I thought MacDonald supported Carrier that Jesus never existed?

The Christian's believe in a Trinity yet Mary is the Mother of God? She was the mother of Christ not of God the Father and the Holy Spirit! The Old Testament is against The Queen of Heaven name yet Christian's call Mary one!

R271: Thank you for saying FAR more eloquently what I was saying.

R232: I was referring to what R271 was also referring to, the claim that the New Testament is proof of existence. Tactius doesn't enter into it. So take your Tactius and tastefully and tactfully shove it up your tuchus. Ta ta.

[quote]Offered throughout this thread.

Indulge me. Cite some. Be specific.

[quote]You just choose to believe who you want to believe and ignore everyone else.

That's a pretty fair characterization of what you do.

[quote]I could post all sorts of scholars who disagree with your position, but you don't care.

You're right. I've read their arguments. Most of the ones you named have never seriously confronted the argument that Jesus didn't exist, and the one who has - Bart Ehrman - follows the apologists' strategy, relying on majority arguments, ad hominems (slights regarding the credentials of scholars with whom he takes issue), and misrepresentation of his opponents' positions.

[quote]And yet you have decided as absolute truth that I do not know Dennis McDonald.

No, I think it unlikely, due to your demonstrated propensity for intellectual dishonesty. Perhaps you do know him. It doesn't much matter, because your insistence that he's crazy and totally alone in his views says more about you than him. [bold]It. Is. Not. An. Argument.[/bold]

[quote]Or don't read or consider anyone except Christian scholars and on and on.

I thought that was supposed to be you.

I [italic]have[/italic] read the Christian scholars. But you really don't get that they have a vital dog in the fight, one which will never permit them to consider possibilities that disprove or reflect poorly on their beliefs, one which the non-faith-based scholars simply do not have.

[quote]Gee, I thought MacDonald supported Carrier that Jesus never existed?

I never said that. I said that Price and Carrier favor MacDonald's thesis that the Gospel of Mark was primarily based on the Homeric Epics. Try to keep up.

Use of the sock account to pipe up support at various points is cute.

[quote] Use of the sock account to pipe up support at various points is cute.

It's amazing what you can decide about me without any evidence. And yet you ignore the evidence that Jesus existed.

[quote] Indulge me. Cite some. Be specific.

Nope, I've indulged you long enough.

[quote]And yet you ignore the evidence that Jesus existed.

None has been offered, least of all by you.

[quote]Nope, I've indulged you long enough.

An admission you have none. I accept your concession.

R283 As has been stated dozens of time upthread. Outside of the new testament there is Tacitus. You just pretend those comments don't exist because you have no response for them. It's like arguing with a Trump supporter.

[quote]Let’s not discount biblical scholars for being believers of some kind or another. I haven’t read anything here, presenting any position, that does not seem to be posted by people who have an opinion. The argument that this is somehow damning is dishonest, since it applies to everyone.

Religious belief is something quite different from merely having an opinion.

[quote] MacDonald's thesis that the Gospel of Mark was primarily based on the Homeric Epics.

Sorry...one more thing. This is not Dennis' thesis. Dennis' thesis is that Mark shaped his construction of the story secondarily based on the Homeric Epics, but primarily based on existing material. He says that a person in the ancient world almost couldn't help coloring a narrative with Homeric overtones because anyone who learned to read and write did so by reading Homer. So for example, Dennis argues the idea of the Sea of Galilee as a sea, when it is really a small lake is riffing on the sea voyages of Homer's Odyssey. But he does not dispute that Jesus lived and worked in Galilee.

And, no, you pigfucking asshole, I concede nothing.

[quote] R271: [R181], the NT is not proof of Jesus's existence anymore than Hans Christian Andersen's writings are proof of the Ugly Duckling's existence. The bible is a book of myths. The gospels were not written by anyone who lived contemporaneously with Jesus. The earliest gospel was written more than 70 years after his purported death

This has all been discussed above ...

The NT is evidence of Jesus’s existence which you discount out of personal bias. Obviously you will not accept anything as “proof” in any event, but lack of “proof” by modern standards does not disprove anything.

Your statement that the “bible is a book of myths” is a conclusion you’ve drawn based on your own personal bias; ignoring counter-evidence. You then use that conclusion to discredit that very same evidence you previously dismissed out of this personal bias.

The authorship of the gospels doesn’t mean they cannot serve as evidence.

Etc. etc.

R284: That was me spanking you on that issue, dear. YOU cited the New Testament and YOU shifted the goalposts to Tactius after I called you out on it. And there you go again at R287 making ridiculous claims.

Hey everyone, the state WILL wither away with the Dictatorship of the Proletariat. The Communist Manifesto is proof it will!

R288 You are confusing two separate posters on here genius! LOL You don't even know you're talking to and you still keep up the smug attitude. What an ass. And I notice you still don't have any response for Tacitus.

[quote] Outside of the new testament there is Tacitus. You just pretend those comments don't exist because you have no response for them. It's like arguing with a Trump supporter.

R284, I've discussed Tacitus considerably on this thread, and answered why it's not evidence, at R214 and R240.

[quote]This is not Dennis' thesis. Dennis' thesis is that Mark shaped his construction of the story secondarily based on the Homeric Epics, but primarily based on existing material.

I think that's simply how you choose to reframe MacDonald's thesis, so as to make it less challenging to your position. Either a narrative is a literary borrowing, or it actually happened. Either Paul was struck down on the road to Damascus and had a change of heart, or it's a literary borrowing from 2 Maccabees and Euripides' 'The Bacchae.' It cannot be both.

[quote]And, no, you pigfucking asshole, I concede nothing.

Yes, you did. Especially now.

R231/R288, you’re confusing different posters. Get something to eat and take a nap.

[quote] Tacitus considerably on this thread, and answered why it's not evidence,

LOL if you just get to declare what is and isn't evidence there's no point in arguing with you.

[quote] I think that's simply how you choose to reframe MacDonald's thesis, so as to make it less challenging to your position.

Because you haven't actually read the book or sat in his classes.

R197, your assertion that nothing anyone can say will make someone lose their faith is wrong and ridiculous. Most atheists were of faith at some point in their lives.

I was raised Christian and believed it without question until I entered college. While there, I took a logic class and it challenged everything I'd been taught about religion and god. And so I did some further studying on the topic and ended up with the conclusion that everything I'd been taught was completely a lie and made up. Most humans who are capable of logical reasoning and thought can and will lose their faith at some point in their lives. I'm sorry you don't believe it's possible because I'm actual proof that it is and I'm sure there are many atheists here who have similar stories of losing their faith.

He was made up from a bunch of different religions. Communication wasn't so fast in those days. So people heard of Mithras, they heard of Egyptian, Greek, roman gods and goddesses and tbe Romans expelled the Jews from Jerusalem -- which was kind of nice if them, because romans usually massacred people; entire provinces (ask Dacia....well, you can't. The romans killed everyone).

So there were these stories about Essenes in Judea, and monotheism. The Essenes were ascetics, they eschewed worldly goods. But Jews don't believe in heaven or hell, which is more of a Persian and Arabic thing. So Jesus preaching about heaven seems pretty unlikely.

It's an amalgam of all of these different religious memes that were floating around the middle Eastern part of the Roman Empire. The Resurrection is as old as mankind. All countries which had climates that had different seasons had a story about death in winter and resurrection in spring.

How it got mashed up the way it did, I'm not sure. But the Middle East, the Mediterranean, the Near East and North Africa had similar stories about a young, good man who is killed in order to bring the world back from winter.

R261 Thank you for TRYING to get this thread back to its original purpose

[quote]Most atheists were of faith at some point in their lives.

R294, I was also. I'm antitheist now. But I generally leave my personal history with Christianity out of discussions because none of that can be qualified. It would constitute an unprovable claim to expertise/experience which cannot function as an argument.

Also, Judaism is monotheism, so this idea thr god had a son is just crazy. There is one God and he has prophets. Not kids. Then there is that five floating around - the holly spirit (used to be called the Holy Ghost, which used to make us laugh in catholic school. (Look out I'm the holy ghoooooost)

Judaism doesn't have holy ghosts or magic doves. A lot of our Christian imagery is very similar to india's religious imagery. But India is polytheistic. Somehow, the religion had to have a god, a holy son and a magic bird that was the Holy Ghost. So they came up with the trinity, which is ridiculous.

Communion would be an acceptable form of cannibalism. In antiquity, young men and women were sacrificed for the good if the realm, as Varys would say, so the gods would allow crops to grow. The ground was anointed with their blood. Many tribes ate parts of the sacrifices, like the heart. By roman times, most of Europe and the Middle East were sacrificing animals, not people. So communion was kind of a way everyone symbolically ate the heart of the human sacrifice who was killed to make God happy. Ancient priests probably drank actual blood of the human sacrifice to give themselves perceived power. Christianity turned the blood into red wine, so it would be more acceptable.

Christianity makes no sense when you think about it. Jesus died for your sins? So why you still sinning, Willis? Why are there still wars?

It wasn't much of a great result if that poor guy died for our sins.

[quote] Then there is that five floating around

That DOVE floating around

[quote]Judaism doesn't have holy ghosts or magic doves.

R298, have you ever read any of the Talmud, or the Midrashim?

R294 That has nothing to do with this thread.

Whether or not Jesus lived has nothing to do with faith. It's a matter of historical fact. The title of the thread isn't whether or not Jesus was divine. I think it's possible he was but Id be the first to admit there's no evidence for it. THAT is a matter of faith.

Now for whether or not he was a real person who lived around 0 AD and preached in Judea:

We don't have a TON of evidence but what we do have pointed towards him being a real figure. (As the vast majority of Dataloungers know, according to the poll) Tacitus mentions him by name. Pontius Pilate really was prefect of Judea at the time the New Testament says Jesus lived. Mara bar Serapion wrote a letter where he says the wise king of the Jews had been crucified by Romans. Josephus, a jew who did not convert, wrote extensively on early Christianity and mentions Jesus by name.

All those sources taken together let us assume Jesus was a real historical figure with a fair amount of confidence.

We have a ton of written evidence that Zeus existed too.

I don't believe in him, either.

r299 "C'est le pigeon, Joseph."

R298, that’s an interesting opinion, but not really useful here.

Yes, he was a model who dated Madonna about 10 years ago

Don't know if he was genuinely interested in her or was just getting Lucky Star residuals thrown at his face though

Haven't heard that much about him recently

[quote]It's a matter of historical fact.

And yet, apologists cannot muster anything but the same tired talking points which have already been exploded. To whit:

[quote]Tacitus mentions him by name.

See R214.

[quote]Pontius Pilate really was prefect of Judea at the time the New Testament says Jesus lived.

New Testament authors had access to the works of Josephus, and it has already been demonstrated that these were relied on to add a smattering of historical color to narratives. Pontius Pilate was one such borrowed detail.

Pontius Pilate also appears in Lew Wallace's 'Ben-Hur: A Story of the Christ,' but his inclusion as a character in the narrative isn't evidence that any of that is true.

[quote]Mara bar Serapion wrote a letter where he says the wise king of the Jews had been crucified by Romans.

Mara Bar-Serapion is valueless as evidence for Jesus. (see link; scroll some distance down to find the section dealing with it)

[quote]Josephus, a jew who did not convert, wrote extensively on early Christianity and mentions Jesus by name.

No, he does not. See the link at R240. Also, Richard Carrier does an extremely thorough job of dismantling claims regarding both 'Testimonia' in his book, linked at R219.

[quote]All those sources taken together let us assume Jesus was a real historical figure with a fair amount of confidence.

It takes faith to make those kinds of assumptions. As arguments go, they've been dismantled to the satisfaction of non-faith scholars.

[quote] New Testament authors had access to the works of Josephus

Absolutely no evidence of this and no reason to believe they did.

Very few would assert that this passage is a forgery [though see Cutn.JGMM, 111-2], for the evidence is strongly in favor of the genuineness of this passage. The passage is in perfect Tacitean style; it appears in every known copy of the Annals (although there are very few copies of it, and none dates earlier than the 11th century), and the anti-Christian tone is so strong that it is extremely unlikely that a Christian could have written it.

Indeed, the Tacitean polemic against Christianity is so strong that it was one of two things Tacitus was condemned for in the sixteenth century - the other being that he wrote in bad Latin [Dor.Tac, 149], and it is even said that Spinoza liked Tacitus because of his anti-Jewish and anti-Christian bias [Momig.CFou, 126].

This is not to say that there are not those whom we may encounter who will suggest that this passage is an interpolation. Some will suggest that because no church father quotes the passage early in church history, it must have been added later.

No church father, however, would have willingly quoted such a negative reference to Jesus and the Christians; moreover, indications are that Tacitus wrote for a very limited audience of his peers. The Annals may not have gotten into the Church's hands at an early date.

So, the idea that this passage is an interpolation is no more credible than the idea held in the 19th century that Tacitus' entire works are fifteenth-century forgeries.

[quote] that’s an interesting opinion, but not really useful here.

We were asked if Jesus existed. No, he didn’t. But the OP didn’t include “other” as an option. Jesus is an amalgam of gods from Persia, Rome, Greece, Egypt, India. His myth borrows from different regions cults around the Mediterranean, Asia Minor and the subcontinent. Funnily enough, he has very little to do with Judaism. There were all kinds of holy men wandering around and some of the men believed they had magical powers. Others had followers who thought they were magical. There are historical mentions of Mithras and Mithra and if Ahura Mazda, isis, etc.

Jews do not have a record of a prophet named Jesus.

[quote] Jews do not have a record of a prophet named Jesus.

Then he must not have existed? Because Jews recorded all their prophets and we have all those records?

Lack of Jesus as a prophet is a helluva lot more convincing than texts that magically appeared after being “missing” for1500 years. Texts that *just happen* to mention Jesus. Lol

Pasolin's Jésus was a hot uni-brower

R309 is Josephus not Jewish now?

Also the conspiracy that Romans secretly invented Jesus ironically has far less evidence than Jesus himself. Namely there is none. There is no one extant writing from any one who was "in" on the con if it ever existed. Even wealthy, educated Romans who weren't the target audience were fooled apparently.

And the biggest roadblock to that theory is that Rome spent a few hundred years actively trying to suppress it and that is extremely well documented.

If you are truly arguing that we shouldn't believe multiple independent written records discussing Jesus because they were all faked, and you should believe they were faked even though there's no evidence of that, you sound a lot more ridiculous than you probably think.

[quote]Absolutely no evidence of this and no reason to believe they did.

There absolutely is, R307.

[quote] Lack of Jesus as a prophet is a helluva lot more convincing than texts that magically appeared after being “missing” for1500 years

They were never missing. The annals were one of the most widely read pieces of writing in human history. Most educated people had a copy. WE just don't have many copies that survived to the modern day.

In fact 14 of Tacitus' annals have not been found to this day. Are you going to argue they don't exist?

Believing all written sources of Jesus were faked by secret masters to control the world for thousands of years is no different than believing the Illuminati rule the world now.

[quote]is Josephus not Jewish now?

Josephus did not mention Jesus. See R240. Also, Richard Carrier does an extremely thorough job of dismantling claims regarding both 'Testimonia' in his book, linked at R219.

[quote] There absolutely is, [R307].

Nope it's an argument based on parallels. You have no direct evidence that Luke or anyone else knew Josephus. Your standards of "evidence" are just different for things you like versus things you don't.

[quote]They were never missing. The annals were one of the most widely read pieces of writing in human history.

R315, [italic]not[/italic] Book 15. It was lost for fifteen centuries and completely un-quoted and unattested by any writer in that span of time.

[quote] Josephus did not mention Jesus. See [R240]. Also, Richard Carrier does an extremely thorough job of dismantling claims regarding both 'Testimonia' in his book, linked at [R219].

And other scholars say Carrier is wrong. And have very convincing arguments why. The bulk of scholarship says the Josephus passage was modified...and it is pretty easy to see where and why...but that there was a mention there. But, of course, they are all wrong and Carrier is right and seeing value in the weight of their many arguments why there must have been something there to modify doesn't matter and is just letting majority rule. Right? Saved you a response.

[quote]Nope it's an argument based on parallels. You have no direct evidence that Luke or anyone else knew Josephus. Your standards of "evidence" are just different for things you like versus things you don't.

Now you're just trolling, R318, without any real effort. You didn't even read the linked article at R314.

I did. As always you make decisions about me based without any evidence.

[quote] R315, not Book 15

That's nonsense. Annals 11 through 16 were discovered together at the same time. Book 15 spent no further time "lost" Now you're just making random shit up

[quote]And other scholars say Carrier is wrong. And have very convincing arguments why.

And yet you cannot present any, R320. Your linked article doesn't say what you think it does, and Goldberg's argument is with another scholar and an earlier argument, not with Richard Carrier.

As a matter of fact, Richard Carrier finds the work of G.J. Goldberg useful to his argument, here:

The Pilate Stone was discovered only in 1961. Does this mean it’s a forgery, and did t exist before that time? That’s the kind of argument I’m seeing upthread.

While any individual source wouldn't be enough on its own, it's not really credible to suggest that several independent sources were all collectively forged.

It's like people who believe vaccines cause autism. There's no point in showing them numerous studies showing they don't because , because they will say all the studies were made up by the pharmaceutical industry to control the populace. You can't cite specific doctors, because they will just say all the doctors are in the pay of pharmaceutical companies so they don't count.

Once someone reaches a stage where they are willing to say all evidence is forged and tens of thousands of people were all in on it, they will believe whatever they want. That's just not a world view you can reason with.

R325 That was definitely one of the more bizarre arguments. I didn't even know how to respond to him saying the annals didn't exist

[quote] And yet you cannot present any

Are you really saying that? You are really being ridiculous. You argument is that number of scholars matters not because Carrier...then you demand a number of scholars.

Here are a bunch...but of course, numbers don't matter...only Carrier does.

[quote]That's nonsense. Annals 11 through 16 were discovered together at the same time. Book 15 spent no further time "lost" Now you're just making random shit up.

Yes, in the 16th century, in the same folio of Medicean manuscripts. No one had ever attested to the material in 15.44 prior to that point.

None of the other volumes (11, 12, 13, 14, and 16) are under discussion. Only 15 contains supposed testimony about Christ.

Jesus is just Santa Claus for grown ups.

[quote] Once someone reaches a stage where they are willing to say all evidence is forged and tens of thousands of people were all in on it, they will believe whatever they want. That's just not a world view you can reason with.

Yep. For all of these theories to work, all of the New Testament writers are either victims of a mass delusion or in a giant conspiracy along with Clement, Justin, Origen, et al. And this is more logical than the plain and ordinary understanding of the texts.

Not just them R331! The romans and and Jews who wrote about Jesus derisively and loathed early Christians also made it up! And then the Romans persecuted their citizens for following a religion they secretly created just for fun

[quote]The Pilate Stone was discovered only in 1961. Does this mean it’s a forgery, and did t exist before that time? That’s the kind of argument I’m seeing upthread.

Where, R325? Certainly not made by me. The existence of Pontius Pilate is not at issue. That he existed is not evidence that the gospels are historical, just as the existence of New York isn't evidence for Spiderman.

[quote]I didn't even know how to respond to him saying the annals didn't exist

Who, R327? Not I.

[quote]Are you really saying that? You are really being ridiculous. You argument is that number of scholars matters not because Carrier...then you demand a number of scholars.

Only one would do... provided they had a valid counter-argument. It's not the names, but the arguments.

There's nothing at Bede.org that addresses either Ken Olson or Richard Carrier. But you're not interested in those arguments. At this point, you're just trolling.

R333 Here is the quote on the annals

[quote] Lack of Jesus as a prophet is a helluva lot more convincing than texts that magically appeared after being “missing” for1500 years.

Utterly ridiculous

So you need a specific response to Carrier? There's Bart Ehrman.

But it really doesn't matter because of this..

[quote] provided they had a valid counter-argument

And no one ever could.

[quote] At this point, you're just trolling.

You have an odd definition of trolling. Presenting arguments that Jesus existed in a thread about that is hardly trolling.

You do you, fella. See you next year when we do the same thread. I'll keep reading a wide variety of sources on this topic. You keep reading Carrier.

R334: In the first place, that's not one of my posts. In the second place, it doesn't necessarily mean that they didn't exist, just that they were missing and unattested for 1,500 years. And the only thing at issue in Annals is a couple of sentences in 15:44.

That this passage was interpolated is not an unreasonable suggestion.

Depeche Mode have the answer

[quote]There's Bart Ehrman.

Um, [italic]no.[/italic] Ehrman's [bold]Did Jesus Exist?[/bold] was written in 2012; Carrier's [bold]On the Historicity of Jesus[/bold] was 2014. Carrier's book is the response to Ehrman's, not the other way around.

It's generally acknowledged that Ehrman's book was an extremely poor effort, with a poor grasp of the other side's arguments. It even emerged that he farmed part of his research out to grad students, who took their arguments from Christian anti-Mythicist polemical websites.

[quote]You have an odd definition of trolling. Presenting arguments that Jesus existed in a thread about that is hardly trolling.

Except you haven't done that. You namecall, misrepresent what I've posted, use sockpuppets, and make fallacious arguments. That's trolling.

Jesus Outside the New Testament (2000) by Van Voorst is considered the most authoritative modern argument for the historicity or Jesus.

r308 Yep, I thought it was you.

We like Joel - he made our day and we shall remember to be positive and optimistic from now on.

Joel has had a good facelift. is that a wig?

R287 is either a full tilt dumbass, or a mega troll. Either way, blocked.

[quote] Um, no. Ehrman's Did Jesus Exist? was written in 2012; Carrier's On the Historicity of Jesus was 2014. Carrier's book is the response to Ehrman's, not the other way around.

Sorry, you are wrong. Ehrman addressed Carrier in that book.

[quote] One of the mythicists who is criticised in Did Jesus Exist?, Richard Carrier, challenged many of the book's points on his blog,[4] to which Ehrman responded on his own blog.[5] (from Wikipedia...you can follow the links there to the actual evidence)

[quote] It's generally acknowledged that Ehrman's book was an extremely poor effort, with a poor grasp of the other side's arguments.

Unsubstantiated rubbish. And if it true, which it is not, your argument earlier was that the number of scholars who believe anything is immaterial. So again you change your own criteria. One for your side; another for the other side.

[quote] It even emerged that he farmed part of his research out to grad students, who took their arguments from Christian anti-Mythicist polemical websites.

Again, according to your own rules, it's the arguments that matter not the source of them.

Ehrman's response to Carrier's criticism of him can be found at the attached link. For anyone interested.

[quote]Sorry, you are wrong. Ehrman addressed Carrier in that book.

[quote] Carrier, challenged many of the book's points on his blog,[4] to which Ehrman responded on his own blog...

Ehrman's responses to Carrier have been on his blog, not in his 2012 book. A 2012 book cannot respond to a 2014 book. Sorry - time travel isn't real. And Ehrman's subsequent blog responses have made no appreciable mark on the arguments in Carrier's book. Since 2014, there have been no serious challenges to it.

[quote]Unsubstantiated rubbish.

See Carrier, [bold]Bart Ehrman and the Quest of the Historical Jesus of Nazareth: An Evaluation of Ehrman s Did Jesus Exist?[/bold] (American Atheist Press, 2013).

See 'Greg's Reviews > Did Jesus Exist?: The Historical Argument for Jesus of Nazareth' @goodreads.

Earl Doherty has also responded extensively.

[quote]And if it true, which it is not, your argument earlier was that the number of scholars who believe anything is immaterial.

There is no emphasis on the number; that is not the meaning of "generally acknowledged." The emphasis is on Ehrman's "poor grasp of the other side's arguments." It's been seven years, and this has still not changed - Ehrman *still* misrepresents Mythicist arguments. Much the same as you misrepresent my statements in a poor effort to try to score one. I'm uninterested in those kinds of games.

[quote]Again, according to your own rules, it's the arguments that matter not the source of them.

Correct; the arguments are bad - so consistently so that apologetics sources have become scorned, and rightly so. It's like citing Ken Ham's 'Answers in Genesis' on evolution, or Tekton Ministries, CARM.org, or Chuck "Peanut Butter - the Atheists' Nightmare" Missler.

[quote]Ehrman's response to Carrier's criticism of him can be found at the attached link.

It's a response to [italic]some[/italic] of the criticism, and a poor one. Witness the excuses he makes for "Did Jesus Exist" at the end of subsection 'The Pliny Confusion'; it wasn't ever intended to be a scholarly book.

On Oct 21, 2016, Ehrman participated in a staged debate with Mythicist Robert M Price, and continued to exhibit his bad-faith arguments. Neil Godfrey of Vridar critiques the debate:

Richard Carrier also scored the Ehrman-Price debate.

[quote]But what if God presented hole?

He did. It’s called New Jersey.

God has multiple holes. See Leeds, Marseilles, Kolkata, Manila

R294 the bit about one God in three persons is beyond bizarre. Add to that the Queen Of Heaven and the Saints. A religion that claims that it is.monotheistic when in fact it is polytheistic makes even things worse.

Jesus was another reworking of Mithra and Osiris.

The Roman Catholic Church had to have many saints so that it would be accepted by the many diverse peoples of the Roman Empire who had many different gods and goddesses already in place. These deities represent the energies that inform our bodies. Also, the Popess is supposed to be the continuatia of the Roman Emperor (or evil Empress at the moment)

I can personally attest that Jesus Christ is real.

R348 Athens and Naples are worse than Marseille..

Many Roman Catholics act like Mary is a Goddess and say she is the mother of God How many God's do they have.

Naples is Fabulous! Been there twice.

[quote] R349: [R294] the bit about one God in three persons is beyond bizarre. Add to that the Queen Of Heaven and the Saints. A religion that claims that it is monotheistic when in fact it is polytheistic makes even things worse.

So, you can’t understand something, so it is “bizarre” and unintelligible. Has it occurred to you that you’re just not that bright? Wisdom comes from first knowing how little you know.

Witness: a distant star appears as a one dimensional object. A single point of light. But at the distance of the Sun, it is in fact a two dimensional object, a disk, with length and width, but no depth. Now shrink it down to the size of a basketball at your feet. You see it actually has three dimensions: length, width, and depth. And yet it is the same object, a sphere. It is your observation that has changed. One object, three perceptions. This is the trinity.

Mary and the Saints are all human. There is plenty to criticize in Christianity, but not this. This is just stupid.

I think most historians today agree, Jesus, the man, existed. He preached on the shores of the Sea of Galilee, was baptized by John the Baptist (one of the things historians all agree to), went to Jerusalem for Passover, started a riot in the Temple (another general agreement), and was captured and executed by the Romans, who were very afraid of a real uprising. The Crucifixion was real, a real historic event.

But most other things about Jesus are certainly not historic, and probably fiction for religious/conversion purposes. None of the authors of the Gospels actually knew Jesus, so they are not witnesses, but spiritual historians.

I'm a bit surprised to find this conversation, here. :)

R357 Thank you. Its perfectly fine to believe Jesus wasn't divine and many things about him aren't true. But saying he didn't exist is false, and makes you as bad as many of you accuse Christians to be. Just believing whatever you want, evidence be damned.

I used the word "historic" when I really meant "historical."

[quote] R357: But most other things about Jesus are certainly not historic, and probably fiction for religious/conversion purposes. None of the authors of the Gospels actually knew Jesus, so they are not witnesses, but spiritual historians.

There were no doubt oral histories passed down. Then written, lost, and rewritten, etc. It is unreasonable to say “certainly not historic”, when there is no evidence of this.

[quote]But saying he didn't exist is false

So instead say that we don't have enough evidence to judge whether or not he was a historical figure. What we have today is a literary figure, the subject of several narratives. If you have faith that this figure is, in fact, real, and beyond that, divine, well fine. That is your business and it if gives your life meaning, well that is a very good thing.

But please realize - and respect - that there are people just as fervently do not accept this view of the figure of Jesus.

^^^ "people who just as fervently...'

[quote]r26 In those letters Paul refers to Jesus and his meetings with Jesus's brother and people who knew Jesus like Peter and John. That is evidence.

It's certainly not [italic]admissible[/italic] evidence, as it's hearsay. Paul did not meet the artist formerly known as Jesus, himself, only (maybe) Peter and James. So any account he got of Jebus is at, or below, the level of gossip.

[quote] So instead say that we don't have enough evidence to judge whether or not he was a historical figure.

But this is false. We have a large amount of evidence supporting him as a historical figure. Some fitting his description really did preach around the sea of Galilee and was crucified by the romans, inspiring a small revolution. Historians agree on that.

Whether he is divine is a separate question; but its widely accepted among academics he was a real person

His existence as a man is not really questioned, at this point.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historicity_of_Jesus

[quote]His existence as a man is not really questioned, at this point.

R366, the non-link you posted to the Wikipedia article does not say this. In fact, it has a subsection on the Christ Myth Theory, which would counter your claim.

[quote]Historians agree on that... its widely accepted among academics he was a real person

This a fallacious argument, known as [bold]argumentum ad populum[/bold]:

[quote]Mary and the Saints are all human.

Where's your evidence for that, R356/'Xavier'? About the most that can be reliably said of them is that they're literary characters.

[quote]There is plenty to criticize in Christianity, but not this. This is just stupid.

Pray give us an example of something in Christianity [italic]you,[/italic] Xavier, consider worthy of criticism. I'd like to see that.

[quote]I think most historians today agree, Jesus, the man, existed. He preached on the shores of the Sea of Galilee, was baptized by John the Baptist (one of the things historians all agree to), went to Jerusalem for Passover, started a riot in the Temple (another general agreement), and was captured and executed by the Romans, who were very afraid of a real uprising.

R357, since all of these claims are exclusively dependent upon the bible, it's not something historians would risk their reputations on. [italic]Theologians[/italic] and [italic]bible scholars[/italic] would mostly agree on this, but not historians.

[quote]started a riot in the Temple (another general agreement)...

The gospel author crafted the 'Cleansing of the Temple' story, not because money exchanges or animal sales were unlawful, but to narrate material derived pesher-style from the Septuagint. It was extracted from Malachi's messenger of the covenant purifying the sons of Levi (Mal.3:1-3; cf. Mark 1:2; 9:3), as well as the oracle of Zechariah: "And there shall no longer be a trader in the house of the Lord of Hosts on that day" (Zech. 14:21b). Jesus' pronouncements were derived from Isaiah 56:7b, "…my house will be called a house of prayer for all nations," and Jeremiah 7:11, "Has this house, which bears my Name, become a den of robbers to you?" It's literary composition, borrowing piece by piece, like a mosaic - not anything which actually happened.

[quote]The Crucifixion was real, a real historic event.

Where's the evidence for that? The narrative of Jesus' life, passion and crucifixion can be demonstrated to have been borrowed from Septuagint passages like Isaiah 53 and Psalm 22, as well as passages from Philo and Josephus.

Luke 2:46-47, 'Jesus in the Temple,' is derived from Josephus, 'Life' 2.3, "Moreover, when I was a child, and about fourteen years of age, I was commended by all for the love I had to learning; on which account the High Priests, and principal men of the city came then frequently to me together, in order to know my opinion about the accurate understanding of points of the law."

There's the account of Jesus ben Ananias (Josephus, 'Wars' 6.5.3), who cried "Woe to Jerusalem," was taken before the Roman governor and flogged; many expressions in this passage resonate with sayings of Jesus.

In Philo ('Against Flaccus' 36-40), we read of a "madman named Carabbas" who was seized and mocked as a king, occasioning offense, quite similar to how Jesus was depicted as being mocked, designated a king, which occasioned offense among Jewish leaders.

In Josephus ('Life' 76), we read of three men crucified (like Jesus and the two thieves); two die, and one is taken down barely alive. "I saw many captives crucified, and remembered three of them as my former acquaintance. I was very sorry at this in my mind, and went with tears in my eyes to Titus, and told him of them; so he immediately commanded them to be taken down, and to have the greatest care taken of them, in order to their recovery; yet two of them died under the physician’s hands, while the third recovered."

Again, it bears pointing out that narratives cannot be both literary borrowings and something which actually happened. They're one or the other. And literary dependence has already been reliably demonstrated.

A strange topic for an atheist/satanist website!

[quote] [R357], since all of these claims are exclusively dependent upon the bible, it's not something historians would risk their reputations on. Theologians and bible scholars would mostly agree on this, but not historians.

This is absolutely not true. Plenty of historians do, in fact.

[quote] Again, it bears pointing out that narratives cannot be both literary borrowings and something which actually happened.

But they can be actual events whose telling is shaped by literary borrowing. Just as someone could tell the story of the fall of Richard Nixon in the style of King Lear.

[quote]A strange topic for an atheist/satanist website!

Where do you get the idea that it's an atheist/satanist website, R371?

[quote]Plenty of historians do, in fact.

Not with any evidence, R372. They can offer it as an opinion, but they cannot qualify it. They don't have any access to further evidence than the apologists do.

[quote] Just as someone could tell the story of the fall of Richard Nixon in the style of King Lear.

As a parody, maybe. Tell me, R372, just how accurate to the history of Nixon would such a telling be?

But here, you're sacrificing coherence just to try to gain the point, rather like those theists who jettison any and every characteristic of 'God' which they value, in the service of trying to argue that a god could exist. Again, there's no evidence for Jesus, or for the gospels reflecting actual history. The literary dependencies stand alone.

Even mythicists (or some of them) concede that Jesus existed. To them, his actual modest life was extrapolated upon by Paul, who created Jesus the Christ.

But the Gospel writers, whatever their sources, were attempting biographies, not just religious tracts.

And all "facts," are simply things that humans communicate to each other, and try to agree upon. There is more evidence that Jesus existed than many other famous historical figures, because more people wrote about Jesus.

From Wikipedia:

The Christ myth theory (also known as the Jesus myth theory, Jesus mythicism, or Jesus ahistoricity theory)[1] is the view that "the story of Jesus is a piece of mythology", possessing no "substantial claims to historical fact".[2] Alternatively, in terms given by Bart Ehrman paraphrasing Earl Doherty, "the historical Jesus did not exist. Or if he did, he had virtually nothing to do with the founding of Christianity."[q 1]

There are three strands of mythicism, including the view that there may have been a historical Jesus, who lived in a dimly remembered past, and was fused with the mythological Christ of Paul. A second stance is that there was never a historical Jesus, only a mythological character, later historicized in the Gospels. A third view is that no conclusion can be made about a historical Jesus, and if there was one, nothing can be known about him.

Truth is slippery.

[quote]But the Gospel writers, whatever their sources, were attempting biographies, not just religious tracts.

The original gospel, Mark, is not a biography. It is an effort to create a 'super-Elijah' character who exceeds the Hebrew prophets. The Jesus of Mark quotes from the Hebrew Scriptures, and performs acts that mirror those of the prophets. Later communities added genealogy/birth narratives to the Markan material, which appear, in slightly different forms, in Matthew and Luke.

But Mark's gospel describes a life, with parents, siblings, a career, and death. That could be considered a biography, even if the facts are slippery.

There is no comparative writing about Zeus.

https://ehrmanblog.org/gospels-biographies-members/

[quote]r365 We have a large amount of evidence supporting him as a historical figure

Like what? His fakey shroud?

[quote]Plenty of historians do, in fact.

Use the Bible as a source for historically accurate factual reporting?

No.

[quote] [R366], the non-link you posted to the Wikipedia article does not say this. In fact, it has a subsection on the Christ Myth Theory, which would counter your claim.

You're ability to just not reads words that refute your claims is awe inspiring. No I see why you say you've seen no evidence of the historical Jesus

Here is what it says on the Wikipedia page you claim validates you.

[quote] Virtually all New Testament scholars and Near East historians, applying the standard criteria of historical-critical investigation, find that the historicity of Jesus is effectively certain, although they differ about the beliefs and teachings of Jesus as well as the accuracy of the details of his life that have been described in the gospels.

[quote] While scholars have criticized Jesus scholarship for religious bias and lack of methodological soundness, with very few exceptions such critics generally do support the historicity of Jesus and reject the Christ myth theory that Jesus never existed

[quote] Most biblical scholars and classical historians see the theories of his non-existence as effectively refuted, and in modern scholarship, the Christ myth theory is a fringe theory and finds virtually no support from scholars

Y'all need to get laid more often.

The discovery of the dead sea scrolls and the Nag Hammadi gospels have pretty much upended many of the assumptions we had about the early christian church. What happened to John Allegro was criminal.

My point is that there are powerful vested interests who work very hard to control and defend the official narrative.

What R382 said. Who cares? How does it affect your life? if you need a belief in a sky daddy to keep you from being very bad, you are flawed.

And R383 plunges headfirst into conspiracy theories to explain the complete lack of evidence supporting his view

r385 my view is that most of what i was taught growing up catholic was made-up crap to boost the legitimacy of the 'one true church'.

Most of it doesn't hold up under scrutiny. Sorry if that upsets you.

sister

[quote] R384: What [R382] said. Who cares? How does it affect your life? if you need a belief in a sky daddy to keep you from being very bad, you are flawed.

The irony. Do you not see that you wrote one of the most flawed, unkind, inhuman things, in this entire thread? I understand tempers rise, but get some sleep, and apologize tomorrow., please.

Describe how the Albigensian heresy has affected your life?

R381, the statements you cite from that Wikipedia article are sourced to statements by Christian apologists, who are not particularly truthful in this matter. All the same, they nonetheless admit that there are some scholars who do not agree, which was my original point.

But you still fail to see that the statements, every one of them, are appeals to [italic]ad populum[/italic]. And characterizing the Christ Myth theory as "fringe" is an [italic]ad hominem[/italic] smear.

It always comes back to these two fallacies. Always. Defenders of the historicity of Jesus don't have anything else.

Jesus lives, and he mows my lawn.

Jesus installed our new electric water heater last fall!

You said both these things

[quote] the statements you cite from that Wikipedia article are sourced to statements by Christian apologists

[quote] characterizing the Christ Myth theory as "fringe" is an ad hominem smear.

Your lack of awareness is astounding.

The atheists here are superior in every way, other then compared to anyone, or anything, else.

[quote]Your lack of awareness is astounding.

They're not the same thing; pointing out that apologists have a vested interest, one which they cannot defy, is not an ad hominem smear. It's simply a fact that their faith takes precedence over any other consideration, and does not permit them to follow evidence or logic wherever it might go, [italic]if[/italic] it happens to go somewhere contrary to their beliefs. Non-faith-based scholarship has nothing analogous to this kind of bias.

[bold]Cornelius[/bold]: Seal the cave?

[bold]Zaius[/bold]: That's correct. And you will both stand trial for heresy.

[bold]Zira[/bold]: But the [italic]proof![/italic] The doll!

[bold]Zaius[/bold]: In a few minutes, there will [italic]be[/italic] no doll. There can't be. I'm sorry.

R394 No, Xtians have made fools of themselves for too long for atheists to ever catch up.

R396, you’re just super.

Get some sleep R388. Nothing I said was offensive.

[quote] They're not the same thing; pointing out that apologists have a vested interest, one which they cannot defy, is not an ad hominem smear.

No, it is the very definition of one. You attacked their personal character rather than their arguments. That's what ad hominem means.

Bravo to r373 (et al.) and to the poster who keeps arguing with him, you've been beaten and you know it. Let it go.

[quote]. Gee, if only we had tape recordings of Jesus at the Last Supper,

Bravo to those above who know how super atheists feel, and that there is no arguing with them based on the history of times.

[quote]No, it is the very definition of one. You attacked their personal character rather than their arguments. That's what ad hominem means.

No, examples of ad hominem would be if I said they were conspiracy theorists, had no qualifications, or characterized them as 'fringe' (as apologists do the Mythicists). But pointing out the reason why it's impossible for them to ever even entertain the argument that Jesus didn't exist, that's not ad hominem.

R400, which of us do you think has been beaten?

[quote]The atheists here are superior in every way, other then compared to anyone, or anything, else.

Oh, Dear!

Dear Sister Scholastica, there are more guys on DL for whom English is a second language and for those who claim it as their first, well, you can see English wasn't correctly taught or learned by the poster. Most of these illiterates are single malt scotch drinkers too.

No. Jesus Christ did not exist.

It's that time of year again.

It is possible to understand that Jesus existed, and still be atheist.

[quote]It is possible to [italic]believe[/italic] that Jesus existed, and still be atheist.

Fixed, R407.

Yeah, no point to doing this again. Just read up.