Too bad you dont hear about these types of extremists in the U.S. media.:rolleyes:
Krypton
quote:
Originally posted by Arbiter
He mysteriously appears in historical records beginning over a century after his supposed death, yet apparently made no impression on anyone within a lifetime of his supposed life. There will always be some metaphysical doubt, but his non-existence is the obvious conclusion.
The gospels, if you didn't know, were written by eye witnesses to the man himself.
Alex
quote:
Originally posted by Krypton
The gospels, if you didn't know, were written by eye witnesses to the man himself.
No they weren't.
They were written decades after Jesus' death by people in different countries.
The fact is is that this shouldn't cast THAT much doubt over their authenticity because they were written by people who used eyewitness accounts and historicity to write them.
DJ Damerchi
that kid(video) is gonna make one hell of a shameless IDF soldier...
LOL @ Haqq calling PKC a zionist...
dont equate rejecting 9/11 conspiracies with being a Zionist. you look like a ing idiot
Alex
Just for some further info, I'm sure many of you know Sir William Ramsey, the famous archeologist. He was of course a skeptic because he began his research by pointing out historical inaccuracies in the book of Acts, yet was lead to the Gospel of Luke (The Historian) and after years and years of research came to the conclusion it was indeed very trustworthy due to it's meticulous nature and attention to verifiable facts of the time. He issued the following statement in one of his writings (I forget which, might have been with McDowell, not sure though):
"Luke is a historian of the first rank...this author should be placed along with the very greatest of historians." (McDowell, p. 110)
Just food for thought I guess.
;)
Krypton
quote:
Originally posted by Alex
No they weren't.
They were written decades after Jesus' death by people in different countries.
The fact is is that this shouldn't cast THAT much doubt over their authenticity because they were written by people who used eyewitness accounts and historicity to write them.
well yea, you know what i mean.
Alex
Ya.
More food for thought:
quote:
Manuscript evidence - there are over 22,000 extant New Testament manuscripts, some dating as early as the 2nd century. In contrast, Julius Caesar's history of the Gallic Wars ("All Gael is divided into three parts...") has only 9 or 10 extant copies dating a thousand years after his death. (McDowell, p. 112)
George Smiley
quote:
Originally posted by Arbiter
There's something ineffably amusing about taking pride in having killed someone who never existed.
I'm fairly convinced that Jesus did exist around about the time he was supposed to exist. I don't think he walked on water or fed 5,000 people with a loaf and a fish (these are either metaphors or exaggerations due to the fact they were written down hundreds of years after the event, imo)
Magnetonium
quote:
Originally posted by pkcRAISTLIN
which historians might you be referring to? certainly not the historians writing at the time of jesus, coz they don't mention him much ;)
not sure if this is the right one or not, but he's always good value anyway:
^^^ Maaan, I love that guy - I've watched every single one of his clips this past weekend!
haqq
quote:
Originally posted by DJ Damerchi
that kid(video) is gonna make one hell of a shameless IDF soldier...
LOL @ Haqq calling PKC a zionist...
dont equate rejecting 9/11 conspiracies with being a Zionist. you look like a ing idiot
I do as I'm pleased - I'm his daddy.
:whip:
Renegade
quote:
Originally posted by Arbiter
He mysteriously appears in historical records beginning over a century after his supposed death, yet apparently made no impression on anyone within a lifetime of his supposed life. There will always be some metaphysical doubt, but his non-existence is the obvious conclusion.
I think this is good evidence against some of the more extraordinary claims made about Jesus of Nazereth, but I don't think it can be used as positive evidence against his ever existing. If Jesus was an itinerant preacher from the backwaters of Galilee (as opposed to some messianic demi-god) then there is no reason to expect that his actions would have ever been recorded in the surviving historical documents from his day (which are primarily Roman in origin: there is no reason to believe that his fame should have ever have extended to the halls of Rome). This is hardly a strong argument for the historicity of Jesus in itself, but I think the alternative explanation - that Jesus, as a historical figure, never existed - is founded on arguments that become increasingly strained and unlikely upon closer inspection.
In the first place, if Jesus never existed then he must have been invented at some point. This is hardly an implausible scenario, but I think there are indications in the Bible (yeah, yeah, I know... bear with me) that this is the least likely of the competing possibilities. The Gospels, for instance, are in quite firm agreement on fairly incidental biographical details, but differ wildly on some of the more theological and metaphysical claims. For instance, all the gospels make mention of:
Jesus being from Nazareth.
Jesus' baptism by John the Baptist.
The comparitive brevity of his ministry.
His rampage in the temple.
His audience before Pilate.
His crucifixion.
And so on. Note that some of these biographical details are somewhat theologically inconvenient and they show in the way they are addressed by the gospel authors. Matthew and Luke believed (mistakenly) that Isaiah contains a prophetic passage indicating the messiah was to be born in Bethlehem. The authors had to invent convoluted (and completely contradictory) accounts as to how it was that Jesus could have been born in Bethlehem while growing up in Nazareth. If there was not a common belief that Jesus was from Nazareth then this would have been completely unnecessary.
Jesus' baptism is another example. In the earliest gospel (Mark) we see Jesus depicted as receiving the spirit (becoming "God's son") when he is baptised by John (Mark 1:10-11). Mark doesn't seem to have any problem with this, but later Christian thinkers apparently did: if John is capable of commanding the spirit of God, who is the real messiah here? By the time we get to the gospel of John (the last, and most theologically contrived of the canonical gospels) we still have John the Baptist baptising Jesus, but it is followed up with a quite gratuitous testimony from JTB assuring the reader that he was "not the Christ" and that is actually Jesus who was "sent by God" (John 1:29-34, 3:27-36). If Jesus was not actually baptised, I see no reason for such a detail to be invented, as it merely creates a theological ambiguity which necessitates the kind of ludicrous rationalistions that we see here given in the gospel of John.
On the other hand, the metaphysical / theological claims that became central to Christianity are extremely muddled and inconsistent between the gospels. They disagree on the matters of:
The virgin birth: (Only mentioned by Matthew and Luke, who present contradictory nativity accounts. John (1:45) and Paul (Rom 1:3) claim that Jesus had a very human father: the existence of Joseph seems to be another inconvenient biographical detail that would not have been invented by anyone attempting to create the mythology of a divine saviour.)
The resurrection: (Not mentioned by Mark (in the earliest manuscripts, the gospel ends amiguously at 16:9) and the other gospels offer contradictory accounts. The substance of the resurrection appears to be in doubt too. For John, for instance, the resurrection is a physical one (John 20:27) but for Paul it is a spiritual resurrection (1 Cor 15:35-44).)
Salvation: (Mark, as far as I'm aware, makes no discernable reference to salvation. For Matthew and Luke salvation is earthly (when the Kingdom of God arrives) and requires the fulfillment of specific (though ambiguous and perhaps contradictory) works. For John, salvation is heavenly and requires only belief in Jesus. For Paul, the nature of salvation is spiritual and requires only faith in Jesus.)
The Divinity of Jesus: (Only John conflates Jesus with God. Mark, Matthew, Luke and Paul are somewhat ambiguous about Jesus' relationship to the divine, though it is notable that none have him claiming divinity. The relationship between the nature of Jesus and the nature of god was only resolved (if you can really call it that) with the clumsy invention of the the trinity at the Nicene Council about 200 years after the final book in the NT was penned.)
Again, if Jesus was a mythical invention then surely these basic theological details would be the first articles created, would form the central, unambiguous foundation of the faith and would not have lent themselves quite so easily to such a divergent set of interpretations. The fact that it is biographical - as opposed to theological - details that are consistent across the earliest Christian literature, seems to indicate to me that Jesus was a historical figure who was later conflated with a whole lot of metaphysical, soteriological nonsense, rather than the other way round.
quote:
Originally posted by Alex
His exploits reached Rome, according to the historians I've mentioned, otherwise they wouldn't be writing about them. They also would have made mention to them most likely being made up if that's what they believed.
I don't understand how logically you can believe that with the spread of Christianity like wildfire over 2000 years that there somehow must be some conspiracy surrounding the original writings and records concerning Jesus. That they were all made up and altered to trick people. Even really smart and well educated people of the time who considered him a "threat to Roman stability in Israel" as Josephus wrote.
To go back a bit on what I've just written, you're kidding yourself if you don't think that Jesus' absense from the historical record is problematic given the sort of miraculous claims you (presumably) believe about him. It's even more problematic when you consider that the salvation he was offering was supposed to be universal (i.e. surely he had the power to spread his fame a bit wider if he wanted his message to reach the greatest audience possible).
As for your appeal to the references in Josephus, that won't really cut it. Firstly he wasn't even born when Jesus was (most likely to have been) crucified, so his account is scarcely authoritative. Secondly, he mentions Jesus in just two small passages, the first of which is almost certainly a later interpolation (or, at least, an original passage that his since been heavily redacted) and the second of which is nothing more than a passing mention. To put this in perspective, Josephus spends several paragraphs in "The Wars of the Jews" describing the life of a later prophet / rabble-rouser named Jesus (link - it's a rather humourous read actually) who surely would pale in historical importance to man capable of raising the dead. If Jesus of Nazareth was a figure of anything more than marginal, provincial importance, surely Josephus' account of his life wouldn't look quite so fleeting by comparison?
Again, it all points to view that Jesus was a fairly inconsequential, poorly-known, dime-a-dozen preacher who - in Paul - just happened to have the greatest PR manager of all time.
Alex
The fact is that his message has reached practically everyone on the planet, even if it has taken thousands of years. It's called divine providence and whether you believe it was efficient enough is another story.
I'm sorry but ignoring the Gospel accounts of Jesus as irrelevant simply because they are now used as religious texts is silly in my opinion. And as I've already mentioned the Gospel accounts were written at a time where THOUSANDS of accounts of Jesus' existence were in existence themselves. The only reason I quote other contemporary sources (I've yet to quote the contemporary Rabbinical sources) is because if you try and use the Gospels as accounts for anything it's more like banging your head against a wall than making any progress because people just outright say things like "Oh the bible is bull lololol" without any proof or evidence. I think you can see how futile this becomes and how unreasonable people can be.
So no, I don't see the accounts of Jesus as problematic because I don't doubt the primary sources quite so strongly as others.
While Paul was an important figure, he didn't write the Gospels, which is where your PR statement would come from I guess because those accounts of Jesus are the ones we base our model of him off of today.
Also, some would consider the disagreements among the Gospel authors, as well as Paul, Peter, James etc to be more evidence that if this were some giant con or conspiracy (like some believe) wouldn't they have gotten the fine details right? :p
Double edit:
It is also funny to me that the big argument against Jesus' divinity and historical importance is that there wasn't this immediate impact that could be felt all across the world. We have to take into account the times and how things were handled as well as the political climate and how it treated potential threats to the ultimate power that was the Roman Emporer who was to be worshiped. The best way to deal with such a threat would have been to kill whoever it was and hunt down his followers (who were nomads which makes things a bit difficult) and stamp out the remaining bits and pieces of this newly formed religion. (As well as persecuting it's followers as violently as possible).
If we look at Paul's biography a bit, I call into doubt very seriously that he was just Jesus' PR guy and that his motives were just to convince a whole bunch of people of this elaborate lie :p I don't think he would have sent quite so many letters to the Corinthians or Ephesians had he not cared what they were preaching and teaching in Jesus' name.
