NWT

I just have always wondered, since the Religious Right is always attacking the science of Evolution, why don't atheists fight fire with fire, by attacking the false notion that Jesus really existed, and that biblical history is anything more than a fable. The simple fact is that Jesus never existed, and the historical evidence of this fact is overwelming, i.e. check out http://mama.indstate.edu/users/nizra...efutation.html . I remember in school we were taught biblical history as though it were true. This should be attacked in all areas of education. It is up to religious enthusiasts to supply verifiable evidence that Jesus existed, which they can't. Talk about hitting them where it hurts! Payback is a bitch isn't it!

Vorkosigan

spin? Richard?

Diogenes the Cynic

Whenever I try to delve into that whole "Nazarene" linguistic quagmire, I always just emerge more confused than when I started. I don't even have a good best guess for that one.

Zeichman

Wow... it's such a good site that they didn't even need to comment on the uncontested epistles, and 1 Corinthians 15. If someone thinks that they can "disprove" Jesus' existence in such a small space, they've got to be kidding themselves.

Hardly "overwhelming" evidence of his non-existence.

NWT

That is a mere fraction of the evidence of the non-existence of Jesus. There is considerable evidence from many different sources which is mainly a question of time & effort to compile. Most Certainly, there is at least 1000x more evidence to contradict the existence of Jesus than there is to contradict the fact of evolution. I have yet to see any evidence that Jesus existed, that can remotely be construed as anything but tenuous. Also, statistics dictates that to prove something is true, requires that vastly more evidence must be presented than to deny that the proposition is true.

spin

If I remember correctly the earliest manifestations of the Aramaic "Natzoriya" is quite late indeed. I have this impression that the term "Natzoriya" -- I don't have a transliteration for the word, so I don't know whether the "o" is long or not --, as it is, comes from usage of the baptizing sect, the Mandeans. Such a form just may have influenced Matt., but the Peshitta of Mt 2:23 gives NCRY), suggesting that there is no long vowel in the second syllable to accound for the omega in Matt.'s nazwraios, nor is there any accounting for the zeta in the Greek if NCRY) with the tsade ("C") is the source.

Hayyim ben Yehoshua uses all the late rabbinical material without subjecting it to any validation.

Eisenman has gone into the Aramaic as well as the rabbinical literature in boring cyclical detail in his James the brother of Jesus, which I don't have access to at the moment.


spin

Zeichman

If this were the case, then you'd think less atheists, agnostics and non-Christians/Muslims would believe there was a historial Jesus. Convince me. I'm waiting.

The argument from silence has a faulty premise, because it presupposes a plethora of information about Palestinian peasants in the first century CE. Why accept Paul's existence? There's no real verification for it. Why accept John the Baptist's existence? It could have been a rabid disciple of John's to put his mention in Josephus' work.

Please. I'm waiting to be convinced. Nothing from the comparative religions school has indicated anything other than that the miracle at Cana might have been based off of a myth from the cult of Dyonisis. There is virtually nothing to indicate that the pre-Johannine Christians (that is, the earliest) believed that he was a god, God, or part of a triune God. If it cannot be demonstrated that Jesus was regarded as divine, then the comparative religions school must have quite large problems with it. As far as I'm concerned, the evidence best points to Jesus being regarded as a historical prophet for the first 60 or so years of Christianity and only after that did he become a part of God. So show me this "1000 times" more evidence to indicate otherwise.

Juliana

How about this little piece of information on the linguistic quagmire of the "Nazarene". Read here for Greek fonts, note #88

"Jesus Nazarene is the name and sometimes the address of Jesus. The possessed man of Capernaum in Mark addresses him that way. Nazarênos—Nazarhnov"—is generally understood as ‘of Nazareth’. Outside of Mark, sometimes Nazwrai'o" is found instead, but this variation is also interpreted as an adjective to Nazarevq—explicitly so in Matthew 2:23. The Septuagint has Nazhrai'o". The annotation by Bauer (61988), Sp.1077, that ‘the linguistic bridge from Nazarevt to Nazwrai'o" is difficult to construct, and one has to assume that Nazwrai'o" had another meaning before it was connected to Nazaret’, something that cannot be emphasized too much. For Nazareth there is also the variation Nazara which could be older (cf. Lk. 4:16: Kai; h\lqen eij" Nazarav). If we compare in Greek the roots of Nazarênos and Nazareth with Caesar—NAZAR ≈ KAISAR—then the difference appears to be minimal (the differing letters—the inital ‘N’ and ‘K’—both consist of three lines: only the beginning and the direction of the last line differ a bit; ‘S’ and ‘Z’ can be confused; ‘I’ dissipates easily and it could be held for the commonly appearing dash of the Z : ‘Z–’. Whereas Nazara is close to Kaisara (the Greek accusative of Caesar) and also Nazareth is close to Kaisareia (Greek Caesarea: the name of several cities), so Nazarênos looks like Kaisarianos: Jesus Nazarene could stand for Gaius Iulius Caesar.

NWT

Actually I meant to say that there is certainly at least a 1000 times the evidence that evolution is a fact (a very vague statement I admit), than there is that Jesus (whoever that was supposed to be) existed. Certainly it would be unreasonable to expect large quantities of historical information from the period, especially since, the Catholic Church had all such information it could find destroyed. It is also expedient to differentiate between a possible historical individual or individuals as mentioned at http://mama.indstate.edu/users/nizra...efutation.html, and the miracle strewn character that predominates all modern Christianity. If you want more evidence you might check out the programs "The Son of God" in the series "Myths of Mankind" that has been on Satellite TV.
Since all evidence makes miracles & miracle workers a very dubious proposition, the onus is on the proponents to supply proof that such a person existed. This is a simple case of statistics, i.e. it is entirely possible that if you shake a jar of salt & pepper, that the salt will all settle on the top and all the pepper will settle on the bottom, but almost certainly it won't, because there is vastly more configurations with the salt & pepper all mixed up. Similarly, no one can prove that Leprechauns and fire breathing dragons don't exist, but if you wish to make that claim, the onus is on you to supply substantial evidence that they do exist.

Zeichman

1. Do you have any evidence that the Catholic Church destroyed all that information? If so, how did Josephus, Philo, numerous pagan philosopher's works, etc. survive?
2. Your link doesn't work, the "..." is part of the url.
3. I don't have a television, so I can't watch any of those programs. Are they on DVD or anything?

Your comparison of Jesus to a Leprechaun or Fire-breathing dragon doesn't work, because the entire nature of such beings are mythical. If one were to strip away the miracles, that they were written metaphorically/allegorically, or suggest that there are naturalistic explanations for such miracles, that "problem" would be solved. If one were to accept the existence of Q (as I do), it would most definitely indicate that there was a very early tradition that Jesus was known as a wisdom-teacher, and not as a miracle-worker. Furthermore, Jesus is most definitely NOT portrayed as God incarnate in the earliest Gospel, Mark. Getting angry at at least two points, praying to God, etc. all point to a very human figure.

I don't think I can "prove" that Jesus existed, by any means. I do think that the evidence points to such a man having existed, since I think that Josephus, once uninterpolated (if such a word exists), presents an independent attestation to Jesus. As far as I can tell, Josephus knows nothing of Christians and/or doesn't think enough of them to devote anything other than a single dismissive sentence to them. I think that enough of the material in Josephus passage about Jesus is nonChristian that it can be traced back to the original writing, as I also believe the whole of the James sentence to be. However, I do acknowleged that they are problematic enough that if one presupposes the nonexistence of Jesus, they can affirm it with the writings of Josephus. But I believe that this requires an a priori assumption as to his unhistoricity.

If you don't want to believe that he existed, I can't prove otherwise, there simply aren't enough writings. If you already do believe that he exists, I can tell you your belief in his existence is reasonable. It ultimately comes down to fideism.

And I have no idea where you're going with the salt and pepper analogy.

Also, can you tell me what school of mythicism you're advocating? Comparative religion, Doherty, etc? That would be helpful so I know what I'm going against.