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| quote: | Originally posted by kr00t0n
You got any proof beyond a very, very, very old fairy tale that has been translated so many times it has lost most of its original content? |
Nope, no proof he existed; however, it is unreasonable to believe he didn't. Certainly, there is no contemporary first hand records that have been found that document the existance of Jesus but that should be expected. Try to recall that in Jesus' lifetime (despite the picture painted in the Gospels) he was a working class person turned rabbi and apocolyptic preacher (there were a great many Jewish apocolyptic preachers at that time) that roamed the rural areas of an insignificant part of the Roman Empire and was executed as a common criminal... not exactly the type of person one would expect there would have been a great many records of. He was partially illiterate (could read but seems he could not write) so he would not have left any written record. The Gospels note that all of his disiples were of similar background and suggests that they were all illiterate... so no record there. During the period of his ministry Jesus was constantly on the move, so unlikely that he would have left behind any sort of perminate record nor would he have been in the presence of scribes (which were rare) long enough to dictate any great treatisies or anything else that would have been circulated and copied sufficient times that some are probable to exist today. Now, it is widely accepted that many of Jesus' sayings/parables were written down in a point form type manner (called "Q" by scholars), which is the likely manner anything by Jesus would have been recorded given the area in which he ministered (Jews of that time would have viewed telling the story of Jesus as less relavant than recording what he said). This document is assumed to have existed because there is such similarity in things he is documented as having said through the gospels, especially those that are common between Luke and Matthew but not present in Mark (which both Luke and Matthew used as a source). Remember, he didn't preach to the types of people that would have left much of a record... laboures, servants, farmers, fishermen, the ill (who were shunned as the prevailing belief was that sin caused illness thus these people were unworthy of assistance or mercy), etc. Really, until Jesus' death there really was nothing all that unique, special, or significant about him that would have resulted in generating sufficient attention from people who were capable of generating records to have generated sufficient records to stand any reasonable probability of lasting this long and being found. In short; if one understands the social conditions of the area at the time and the nature of Jesus' ministry it is completely unreasonable to expect that there would be a contemporary first hand record that exists today.
The earliest records of Jesus that still exist are the letters of Paul, which are second hand, as Paul never met Jesus (in life... there's the whole vision thing but let's not get into that). After Paul we have books by Peter and James who didn't actually write the books; rather, they dictated them much later in life when they had finally stopped travelling and preaching their own ministries. Following that we have the Gospels, which are also second or third hand accounts and writen 30-70 years after Jesus' death (some of the Gospels that didn't make the bible are up to 200 years after his death). Beyond these all we have is critiques of Christianity, apologetics, and various others that reference Jesus but do so in a climate where the cult of Jesus or Christianity had been alive and well for quite some time.
Certainly, the hard evidence for Jesus is not very strong; however, it would be unreasonable to conclude from this that it is probable he did not exist. The oral tradition that gave birth to the later written tradition was very strong and spread very quickly in all directions away from Palistine. Based on the amount of people spreading the story of Jesus and the distance that story travelled in a very short time after his death strongly suggests that there were a great many people carrying the message in those first years after his execution. So many people independently carrying such similar stories definately indicates there was some truth to the story... at very least in the common details; Jesus existed, was Jewish, from Galilee, had a travelling ministry, was an apocolyptic prophet, political dissident, preaching to the fringes of society, and was executed. It is only reasonable to conclude that he did exist as described above; anything more than that (messianic, son of god, resurection, etc) is all debatable and should be considered matters of faith rather than history.
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| quote: | Originally posted by RickyM
you're just a shit version of Moral Hazard. At least he knows what he's talking about. |
| quote: | Originally posted by pkcRAISTLIN
lol, i love it when moral feels the need to lay the smack down 
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