GakuseiDon

The letters of John in the NT suggest an early belief in Jesus being a spirit that looked human. The letters are generally dated to end of First Century/early Second Century, and appear to be written at a time when there was a belief that the world and matter was inherently evil. So how could Jesus -- the Son of God -- contain any earthly matter? It appears to be early because the letter is still predicting that the world is shortly passing away.

http://www.earlychristianwritings.co...1john-kjv.html

1 John 2:
[15] Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him.
[16] For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world.
[17] And the world passeth away, and the lust thereof: but he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever.
[18] Little children, it is the last time: and as ye have heard that antichrist shall come, even now are there many antichrists; whereby we know that it is the last time.

1 John 4:
[1] Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God: because many false prophets are gone out into the world.
[2] Hereby know ye the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God:
[3] And every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God: and this is that spirit of antichrist, whereof ye have heard that it should come; and even now already is it in the world.

Minimalist

Uh, no. Again, we have plenty of archaeology concerning the first and second century AD and none of it mentions jesus. He exists solely in the writings of believers. The fact that the Romans ruled Judaea in the first century AD says absolutely nothing about jesus.

The fact that first century writers did not comment upon these so-called events speaks volumes.

Minimalist

Two of them have already been mentioned, the addition to "John" of the "woman taken in adultery" story and the improved ending to "Mark.

He has entire chapters though about how changes were made to suit early church dogma as well as a long section on how the role of women in the church was stamped out by the male-dominated clergy. I really cannot do his arguments justice by looking for one pithy verse.

Minimalist

He is not an archaeologist. In fact, he was last heard from trying to breathe life back into Simcha Jacobovici's "Jesus Tomb" in 2008 which saw him catching a lot of hell from archaeologists.

Minimalist

Let's be honest, here. The NT is a collection of books of dubious authorship and a bunch of letters which are of equally dubious authorship. The entire mass of xtian writings was evaluated by early church leaders for eventual inclusion into the canon. Many books/letters did not make the final cut. Nonetheless, they have been combined into a single book...which is not even as entertaining as GWTW to read. Still, it is where your Jesus exists.

I really don't want to start the Tacitus/Suetonius/Pliny debates again but the fact that there were xtians in the second century does not mean that there was any jesus in the first.

Speculating about what documents we do not have is a fairly pointless exercise. I might speculate, with just as much justification as you, that somewhere there is a document which says...."let's have some fun....once upon a time there was a guy named "Jesus" who came back from the dead."

I have no such document.

GakuseiDon

But it is evidence, since they talk about Jesus being a First Century person. Tacitus describes "Christ" being crucified under Pontius Pilate. If he got that from Christians, we need to ask: Why did Christians believe it? Because it wasn't true? It's possible, but there are no documents to suggest that. Could the passage in Tacitus have been forged? That's possible also. But AFAIK most scholars don't think so.

I agree to that. But looking at the documents we do have, there doesn't appear to be any reason to conclude there wasn't a historical Jesus, at least in my humble and amateur opinion.

aa5874

It is absurd to think that the title Christ can ONLY refer to Jesus of Nazareth.

Even in the NT it is said that many shall come in the name of Christ.

Mr 13:6 - It would appear that Tacitus' Christus was a deceiver or not Jesus of Nazareth, no Church writer ever used that passage about Christus in Tacitus Annals 15.44 up the 4th century.

Every one is entitled to their own opinion but not to their own facts.

Virtually all the Church writings and the NT AGREE that Jesus TRULY was not human, but GOD and MAN, the offspring of the Holy Ghost of God, who walked on water, transfigured with the resurrected Moses and Elijah, resurrected and ascended through the clouds.

What document of ANTIQUITY do we have that show Jesus was a mere human?

It is NOT from the NT, Ignatius, Papias, Polycarp, Clement, Clement of Alexandria, Justin Martyr, Marcion, Irenaeus, Tertullian, Theophilus of Antioch, Athenagoras, Municius Felix, Tatian, Origen, Eusebius, Chrysostom, Jerome.....etc.

What document, where is the document for the mere-man Jesus?

It cannot be found. It must merely be a mythical document.

GakuseiDon

And true enough! I usually just ignore you aa__, but you do bring up some interesting points and make the odd good point. You can add the word "savant" to your title! :notworthy:

Toto

Why is 0 not an option?

Doug Shaver

I update it when I can, but that isn't nearly as often as I wish it were.

My Web hosting service includes visitor stats. Superficially, they look pretty good, but I'm not actually sure how to interpret them. If by feedback, you mean e-mails commenting on something there, that's been pretty rare.

If I may construe your OP as asking "On what grounds do you doubt Jesus' historicity?" then my essay on that subject is a preliminary answer. I've updated it a couple of times since I first posted it a few years ago, but it is no longer the essay I would write today if I were starting from scratch.

Without trying to recapitulate my whole argument here, I might summarize it thus: Considering all the undisputed facts from which we may infer anything about Christianity's origins, I think some theory that does not include a historical Jesus is more parsimonious than any that does include a historical Jesus.

To give you an example of what I mean: What is probably the oldest extant manuscript containing fragments of Mark's gospel was produced by somebody in the early third century. That is undisputed (at least, it is undisputed by anyone whose opinion I care about). That the original version of that gospel was written sometime around 70 CE is not undisputed, notwithstanding that it is the majority opinion among relevant authorities.